There's Something Wrong With Silas
by TheEmberGirl
Summary: Based off the Carmilla webseries: When his roommate Mattie disappears, Gilbert Beilschmidt is the only one who is determined to find him. Gilbert soon discovers that there are more cases of vanishing students, and it all may be connected to something more sinister that his replacement roommate Arthur is somehow involved in.
1. Chapter 1

**This doesn't follow the plot of the webseries exactly, and no knowledge of Carmilla is required for this to make sense.**

* * *

 **Chapter 1**

 _"Hello whoever is out there watching this," the pale haired teenager speaks solemnly into the camera, dark red eyes serious. "My name is Gilbert and I'm reporting from Silas University." Gilbert takes a moment to contemplate what to say next. "This may sound crazy, but something seriously wrong is going on here. I guess I should've have realised that seeing this place is in the middle of the English countryside, with no other sign of civilisation for kilometres around, and the professors here wouldn't be out of place at Hogwarts. But hey, weird staff, buildings never being where you thought they were, the library catalogue seeming to read your mind, all just part of being a new student, right?" Gilbert picks up a card off the desk in front of him. "At least that's what I thought until my roommate disappeared and I found this by his bed." He waves the card in front of the camera. "It's a 'official' withdrawal card, which is ridiculous because there's no way Mattie decided to leave in the middle of the night without any of his stuff, and also this thing is_ multiple choice _." He begins to read the card._

 _"_ Dear student; your roommate no longer attends Silas University because:

A) He/she has lost their scholarship and decided to go home

B) He/she has decided to withdraw due to your extreme incompatibility as a roommate

 _-really?_

C) He/she has suffered a mental breakdown that has left them unfit for student life

Exit procedures have commenced, there is no need to take action on your part. _"_

 _Throwing the card back down, Gilbert looks back at the camera. "That's just ridiculous; a guy doesn't just go to a party then suddenly decide to leave," he takes a deep breath. "Look, Mattie might have liked to party too much and never cleaned the room without me telling him to, but people are acting_ like he never existed _. No one seems to know who he is, and neither Student Services or Campus Security give a damn." He looks almost pleadingly into the camera. "So if anyone out there knows how to help, my contact information is in the info box. And if by some chance you're hungover and watching this at a random stranger's house, Mattie, text me or give me a call so I can stop freaking out over this." Gilbert's mobile phone rings and he looks across the dorm in surprise. "I hope that's Mattie! I'll keep you updated if it isn't." The video ends._

* * *

Gilbert scrambled for his phone after clicking to pause his webcam recording, grabbing it from his bed before returning to his desk, picking it up and tucking it between his ear and shoulder as he uploaded the video.

'Hello?' His voice trailed off as he realised the voice on the other end wasn't Mattie's. 'Yes, I'm Gilbert Beilschmidt, the guy with the missing roommate.'

He almost dropped his phone as the Student Service Adviser on the other end spoke again.

'What? No! I don't need a new roommate! I already have one! Who. Is . Missing. You need to get me in contact with Campus Security or the Dean of Students!"

The Adviser didn't listen, having already hung up in the middle of Gilbert's tirade.

'Fine!' Gilbert flung his phone back at his bed. 'If no one's going to help, I'll find him myself, and this will save me from having to think up a topic for my journalism assignment!'

Picking up a pen and a notepad, Gilbert was halfway out of the door before he remembered his phone and retrieved it from his bed again with a huff.

Three hours later he was back in the dorm, mulling over a pile of notes that didn't make sense. What he'd say earlier still held, it was as nobody was aware the Mattie had ever existed, everyone he'd questioned looked at him blankly before saying something along the lines of "yeah I think I remember a guy like him in one of my classes, but I don't remember seeing him last night". Even with the pages of strange anecdotes about the previous night's mixer party, from the fog released by the Alchemy Club to the Glee Club's creepy chanting, Gilbert was drawing a blank. There was absolutely nothing he could connect to Mattie's disappearance. Chewing on the end of the pen he was holding, Gilbert glared at one of the sheets of paper in front of him.

'Even Roderich couldn't remember who Mattie is, and he's our floor don! Why didn't I just go to that party with Mattie?'

At this point the door creaked and Gilbert swung around in his chair, hoping to see Mattie at the doorway. Instead, a boy with messy dark blond hair dressed entirely in black strode into the room, throwing his backpack onto Mattie's bed.

'Hey!' Gilbert exclaimed indignantly. 'Who the hell are you?'

The intruder with the decidedly punk styled clothes rolled his eyes.

'My name's Arthur,' he said, plugging his phone into the speaker dock so loud punk rock music filled the room. 'And I'm your new roommate.'

'Oh no,' Gilbert recalled the phone call he'd received and elected to ignore what it meant. 'I have a roommate.'

'Well don't you catch on quickly,' Arthur retorted with an expression somewhere between amusement and annoyance.

'What I meant was I have a pre-existing roommate, _who isn't you_ ,'

'Oh? Where is this "pre-existing roommate" then?'

'Mattie is…' Gilbert grit his teeth, knowing what he said next would sound stupid. 'Missing.'

Arthur opened the room's fridge and examined its contents, acting like the room was already his, which was getting on Gilbert's nerves.

'So you can't produce this roommate of yours,' he said with a mockingly deliberating tone while closing the fridge. 'But you want me to leave?'

At this point Gilbert decided he seriously disliked Arthur, with his superior attitude and the condescending way he said everything.

'That isn't exactly what I meant,' he squeezed his eyes shut in annoyance only to snap them open again a moment later. 'Hey! What are you doing? Those aren't yours!'

Arthur was picking through the various belongings Mattie had left on his bed.

'Oh sorry,' still speaking in the same condescending tone, Arthur lifted a jacket off the bed to take a better look. 'You may have a "missing roommate", but I have a letter from the Dean of Students stating that I live here now, and these things happen to be on my side of the room.'

Gilbert stood up from his chair, nails digging into his palms.

'This _isn't_ your room!'

Arthur walked up to him until they were face to face, Gilbert swallowed a gulp. For someone who was half a head shorter than him, Arthur sure was intimidating. There was something about the glint of his deep green eyes that meant business.

'Fine,' Arthur hissed. 'You find this "Mattie" of yours and I'll leave, but until then I'm staying right here.'

Looking smugly at Gilbert's stunned expression, he turned around and went back over to Mattie's bed and made himself comfortable on the pillows.

'You know what?' Gilbert said as he recovered. 'I'll do exactly that. I'll find Mattie and then you'll be out of here so fast there'll be scorch marks on your clothes! If you can even see them against all that black you wear!'

Arthur scoffed but for the most part just ignored him. Fuming, Gilbert returned to the desk, angrily picking up the useless pages of information he'd gathered, reading furiously as he heard chuckling from Mattie's bed.

A few days later and Gilbert was recording another video, thankfully alone in his room. He was at a dead end with finding clues to Mattie's disappearance, and there was no way he would let Arthur know that. He wasn't giving up however; he would get his old roommate back, and besides this was doubling as his journalism assignment now.

'Hello people of the internet,' he began, looking into his webcam. 'Sorry for not updating earlier, but there still aren't any clues of Mattie's whereabouts. Not to mention he's been replaced by the roommate from hell.'

Gilbert figured he might as well vent about Arthur if there was nothing else he could do.

'Let me tell you a bit about Arthur; he's keeps wearing Mattie's clothes, which doesn't quite fit in with the "all black wearing emo punk rocker" thing he has going on so I have no idea why he does that. He never cleans the room _even_ when I politely ask him to and really doesn't do anything except for eating my chips and stealing my ginger beer. Oh and he never gets up before noon, like seriously, does this guy not have classes to go to?'

Having revealed this much pettiness already, Gilbert decided to go a little further.

'I figured it's time for me to get some revenge,' he held a soy milk carton with "Property of Arthur" written on it up to the camera. 'Here's Arthur's super special soy milk that I'm not supposed to touch because apparently he can take whatever he likes of my stuff and I can't do the same with his. Well fat chance, he's not in the room right now, so I'm going to take his fancy soy milk and eat my cereal with it.'

Gilbert poured the carton triumphantly, not caring whether anyone would think he was childish. Then he stopped; dropping the carton and pushing his chair away from the desk.

'Holy shit! That's… That's blood! I'll update later, but right now I need to talk to the floor don!'

He ended the recording and hit "upload" before running out of the door to find Roderich.

Roderich Edelstein was not the most easy person to talk to, with the way he tried to shrug out of everything, Gilbert wondered how the bespectacled third year ever even got into his official position.

'That's blood, Roderich. Blood in the milk carton. Clearly my roommate has something creepy going on.'

Roderich hummed and adjusted his glasses.

'Well it's a little _odd_ , but I'm sure there's some normal explanation for this,'

'Are you even listening to me?' Gilbert asked, beginning to lose patience. 'That's _blood_. This is some sort of death threat, or at the very least a health code violation. You would know, what with your policies on hygiene and all. Arthur has to go, right?'

'I suggest you ask your roommate for an explanation,' Roderich looked queasily at the red stained carton Gilbert was waving at his face. 'For all you know it could a protein supplement.'

'For what? Severe haemoglobin deficiency?'

'Look, I'm just saying this could possibly be solved with some _communication_ ,'

Gilbert resisted the urge to either smack himself or Roderich in the face, carefully setting down the soy milk carton and sighing.

'Clearly this is a waste of time. Maybe I should just talk to the Dean.'

'Oh no,' for the first time in their conversation, Roderich looked alarmed. 'You don't want to do that—'

'Why not?' Gilbert demanded.

'You'll draw unwanted attention to yourself and, uh, get an even worse roommate,' Roderich explained hurriedly. 'Besides, your old roommate will probably come back and then Arthur will have to move out. That's what happened with all the other students who disappeared.'

'Whoa whoa, back up a bit there. Did you just say _other students that disappeared_? Why didn't anyone say something?'

Roderich looked owlishly at him over his glasses.

'Well it was during prosh week,' he shrugged delicately. 'It's completely normal for people to get carried away from all the drinking.'

'Okay, never mind that very flawed logic,' Gilbert looked at Roderich incredulously. 'What happened to all these students?'

'They all disappeared for two days then returned to their dorms or showed up in class with no memory of how they got there. As I said, perfectly normal symptoms of excessive alcohol consumption.'

'You know what, I don't care about your "perfectly normal" explanations for everything. I need to talk to those students right away!'

'I don't think that's a good idea,' Roderich sighed as Gilbert glared at him. 'Look, you're obviously on a mission, but those students have been through a traumatising event and I don't think they'll want to deal with your level of intensity.'

'Why don't _you_ ask them if they're willing to do an interview then?' Gilbert was not about to let the only lead he had slip from his hands just like that.

'We'll see about it,'

At this point Arthur trudged through the door and tossed his bag into Mattie's bed, before proceeding to scroll through his phone, not acknowledging either of the other people in the room. Roderich frowned, then smoothed out his expression into one of default hospitability.

'You must be Arthur,'

'Must I be?' Arthur spoke without looking up from his phone, he made his way over to the speaker dock, having found the song he was looking for.

An expression of pained annoyance flickered across Roderich's face before he spoke again.

'It's nice to have you on this floor,' he then turned to Gilbert. 'I'll leave you two to sort things out by yourselves.'

With that Roderich exited the room, closing the door gingerly behind him. Arthur took a glance at the closed door and set his phone down beside the speakers, before going to open the fridge. Having poured the red soaked contents of his cereal bowl into the bin, Gilbert looked across the room at Arthur.

'You're not going to find your soy milk in there,' he said archly, before looking pointedly at the milk carton on his desk.

Arthur closed the fridge door and sighed.

'It was just a prank,' he spoke as if he was addressing a small child, and Gilbert rankled at his tone.

'What kind of prank involves _blood_ in a milk container?'

'Relax,' Arthur rolled his eyes. 'It was red food dye and corn syrup.'

Gilbert's retort was interrupted by a knock at the door, which slowly opened to reveal a dark haired young man and a petite blonde girl.

'I hope we're not interrupting anything,' the male said politely.

'You're really not,' Arthur scoffed, taking half a glance at the pair before picking up a book and throwing himself bodily onto Mattie's bed.

'Ignore my roommate, I'm fairly sure he's a sociopath,' Gilbert shot a glare at Arthur – who merely scoffed again, before returning his attention to the visitors. 'How can I help you?'

'I'm Kiku,' the dark haired student began. 'And this is Lili. The floor don said someone called Gilbert wanted to talk to us.'

'Oh that's me!' Gilbert was surprised Roderich had managed to get back to him this quickly, but excited at the prospect of continuing his investigation. 'Come in and sit down!'

He gestured them over to his bed and pulled his chair over as they sat awkwardly, setting his pen and notepad on his lap.

'So earlier this year the two of you disappeared—,'

'Stellar journalism right there,' Arthur commented, interrupting him.

'I didn't ask for your opinion,' Gilbert shot back, turning halfway around in his chair before deciding it wasn't worth the effort. He turned back towards Kiku and Lili and looked at them expectantly.

'That's right,' Lili chewed on her lip and tugged at a strand of her chin length hair. 'One moment I was at the Athletic Team's get-to-know-everyone party and the next I was waking up in my bed with seventy missed calls from my brother and my roommate telling me I'd been missing for two days.'

Gilbert jotted down some information onto his notepad then turned to Kiku.

'And the same thing happened to you?'

Kiku nodded, looking troubled with his own memory.

'I was at an informal dinner hosted by the Chess Club, and then I was sitting in my Mathematics lecture a day and a half later. I don't remember a single thing that happened in between.'

'Are you sure you don't remember anything? Anyone suspicious at the parties you went to?'

They both shook their heads.

'I can't remember anything from when I was gone,' Lili affirmed. 'I guess the fruit punch was stronger than I expected.'

'Likewise, I may have had a glass or two of wine with the dinner,' Kiku agreed. 'I don't remember anything from the time I disappeared either, but I did have some strange dreams before it happened.'

'Oh yes,' Lili's eyes widened. 'The dreams.'

'The dreams?' Gilbert looked up from his notes with a frown, though with strange incidences that happened on a daily basis at Silas, he supposed he couldn't entirely rule out the supernatural.

'The same dream over and over,' Lili looked over at Kiku to see if he agreed, then continued. 'A dark figure looming over me, or some sort of large animal prowling beside my bed.'

She shuddered, pausing in her description to fidget with her rather old fashioned dress.

'And then there was a suffocating darkness that muffled all the senses,' Kiku supplied.

From the other bed, Arthur laughed.

'That all sounds like a load of bull to me,' he turned the page of his book loudly as if to prove a point.

'Can you shut up!' Gilbert whirled around in his chair, not noticing that Lili had begun to shake.

Arthur ignored him and began to whistle, flicking another page over loudly.

'I'm surprised you haven't given yourself a paper cut doing that,' Gilbert growled before resolving to continue the interview.

'I'm sorry about that interruption— Are you alright?'

He looked at the trembling Lili in alarm as Kiku tried to comfort her.

'I can't do this anymore, I'm sorry,' Lili whispered. 'I hope none of this ever happens to you, but I need to go,'

'I think the dreams really affected her,' Kiku said quietly. 'I'll take her back to her dorm, I'm sure I can supply you with more information another time.'

Gilbert nodded and escorted them out of the room.

'I understand, thank you for your time,'

The door had barely shut when Arthur spoke up again.

'Wow, those two sure were boring,' he said dismissively with an exaggerated yawn. 'No wonder whatever's out there kidnapping students threw them right back.'

Gilbert was glad he hadn't been holding anything, because he was fairly certain he wouldn't have had the self control not to hurl it at Arthur.

'What is wrong with you?' he snapped. 'Those were actual people who'd had something terrifying happen to them, and you just decide to make fun of them? How messed up are you? Because you don't seem capable of caring about anything!'

Arthur slammed his book shut.

'Do you really think you can help them? Help your poor, missing roommate?' the mocking tone that Gilbert so detested was now laced with something more bitter sounding.

'Well, at least I'm doing something,' Gilbert retorted, crossing the room to sink back into his chair and turn away from Arthur.

'Oh, I'm sure if you keep playing at Sherlock Holmes everything is bound to work itself out,'

'As if your lounging around acting cool and disaffected is any better,' Gilbert tried to focus his attention on the notes he'd just made. 'I bet you're just miserable and alone.'

He heard mattress springs creak and steady footsteps as Arthur walked up behind him.

'Do you really think what you're doing will have any effect? Do you know anything you didn't know before Mattie vanished?'

Gilbert tried to ignore him, staring at his papers until the words blurred together, feeling angry and confronted.

'You are a child,' Arthur sneered, voice full of spite. 'And you understand nothing. Not about life. Not about this place. And you certainly don't have the brains to survive the real world. You know, you'd be a lot better off if you decided to stop playing detective.'

The words stung, especially because in some ways Arthur had been right, there were a lot of things he was yet to understand. Gilbert curled his fingers into fists, blinking away the moisture at his eyes, trying not to let his emotions show. Behind him, he heard Arthur walk away, evidently satisfied at the effect his words had had.

'Maybe you're right,' Gilbert began shakily, then continued before Arthur could say anything. 'Maybe the world doesn't work the way I expected it to, but that doesn't mean I'm just going to sit back and accept that. You can't change the world unless you decide to do something it. And I'm not going to just give up. Sure, this university is creepy as fuck, and nobody seems to care that students just go missing. But Kiku and Lili deserve better. Mattie deserves better. I deserve better. Hell, even you deserve better.

'You know what? I've been putting all my videos from my journalism project up online, someone out there is bound to be able to help me.'

There was silence for a few moments, and even as the adrenaline from his rant wore off, Gilbert regained his confidence as Arthur was seemingly at a loss for words.

'The Dean isn't going to like that,'

Gilbert blinked at the unexpected response, then composed himself.

'Are you talking about the videos? Because if the Dean doesn't like bad publicity, then he should maybe do something about the fact students are going missing.'

Before he could say anything more, the sound of an air raid siren rang throughout the campus, permeating into every room. Gilbert covered his ears, then realised it was a wasted effort as the noise kept going.

'What the hell is that?' he demanded as Arthur smirked knowingly. 'Is the campus on fire? I didn't realise we lived on the set of a war movie.'

'Oh you're in trouble now,' Arthur replied cryptically as the door burst open.

Roderich ran into the room with a mildly panicked expression on his face, his usual aristocratic aura all but abandoned.

'They've called a town hall,' he panted. 'You have to hurry, we have five minutes.'

'Just a moment, Roderich dear,' a woman with long chestnut hair brushed to the side to reveal an undercut spoke as she strode into the room. Gilbert recognised her as Erzsébet Héderváry, leader of the Summer Society and a well known figure around Silas. 'I have some business to settle first.'

'You,' Erzsébet said accusingly, pointing at Gilbert. 'What have you done?'

* * *

 **Notes:**

 **For those who have watched Carmilla, most of the character's counterparts should be obvious. Prussia is Laura, England is Carmilla, Austria is Perry and Hungary is a portmanteau of the roles of Danny and LaFontaine. As for the Dean, feel free to take a guess at who he is, I'll probably reveal his identity in the next chapter.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry about how overdue this chapter is, but between helping my aunt move house, work, trying to find another job, and Lunar New Year, I was really pressed for trying to find time to write even though I'm still on break. I apologise if this chapter is a little choppy, it was basically written bit by bit in whatever time I could find every day.**

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

 _Gilbert adjusts the camera before he sits down, signs of exhaustion evident in the circles around his eyes and the cup of coffee in his hands. "Okay, okay. I know it's late and some of you are going to leave comments saying that I shouldn't be drinking coffee, but it's been a crazy night." Gilbert quickly gives a rundown on his interview with Lili and Kiku, then takes a large gulp from the cup before continuing. "So the university called a town hall – which is as intense as it sounds, especially seeing their idea of an announcement system is World War Two era air raid sirens – but nothing actually got done regarding the missing students. Actually before I get to what happened at the town hall, let me tell you about the run in I had with Erzsébet Héderváry." He rubs at his eyes and takes another gulp of coffee. "So picture this: air raid sirens are going off and then the most well known student of the university comes barging into your room with an angry expression on her face. Yeah I was pretty scared. I mean, word gets out you've argued with the 'campus heroine' and your reputation is ruined, also she's the leader of the Summer Society, which is like an exclusive society for athletic Amazonian girls… Apparently they used to have a brother society – the Zeta Omega Mu – but they got disbanded a while back after setting fire to a building during an alcohol fuelled party." Yawning, Gilbert struggles to press on. "Off topic," he mumbles, then clears his throat. "Anyway, Erzsébet starts accusing me of trying to steal her glory or something just because I happen to care about_ why students are going missing _. Just because she's been investigating the disappearances of one of her Summer Sisters but couldn't find any results." He shakes his head, finishing his coffee. "She even threatened to expose me to the Dean at the town hall because '_ clearly, I'm just doing this for attention _'. It was about this point that Roderich – yes, the useless floor don Roderich – decided she was being a little extreme and goes '_ Umm, honey. Maybe you shouldn't do that, it might be useful to trade information with him _'." Gilbert grimaced at his own bad impersonation. "And Erzsébet stares at him like he's grown a second head – to be honest, I think I was doing the same thing – and then she saw he had a point and decided she'd keep quiet about me posting videos during the town hall, but not before she gives me the whole 'I'll be watching you' spiel." Gilbert yawns again, looking blearily into the camera. "So we make it to the town hall just before doors close, and the Dean – this middle aged man in a suit that probably cost more than my entire tuition and an imposing unimpressed grandfather expression – begins his speech with:_

 _'It has come to the university's attention that a certain individual or individuals have been circulating rumours about students disappearing. If theses disturbances do not cease, the perpetrators will be dealt with.'_

 _"At this point Erzsébet stands up and I'm sure she's going to go back on the deal and get me expelled or something, but instead she's like:_

 _'They're not rumours when one of my Sisters has gone missing!' We should reinstate Night Marches to prevent more disappearances!'_

 _"That led to the Alchemy Club complaining about flaming torches being bad for some fungal experiment they're doing, and then former members of the Zetas started making noise about how they should be allowed to reassemble and do campus patrols. At this point everyone is just shouting at each other and the Dean decides to end the town hall without anything having been done."_

 _Gilbert throws his hands into the air then lets them down tiredly. "I guess the only good things that happened tonight was that Erzsébet said she could think of a way to post these videos undetected and Arthur vanished off into the night to do god knows what – so I could film this without being patronised the entire way through. Sorry for not having more information about what is happening, but I'll update you once I've gotten more leads. Right now I'm just going to go and pass out." Gilbert reaches over and switches the camera off._

* * *

Struggling to keep his eyes open, Gilbert clicked a few buttons to let the video upload. Without bothering to change into pyjamas, he crawled into his bed, not even waiting to make sure the video uploaded properly. Despite the caffeine he'd just consumed, he fell asleep immediately.

When Gilbert awoke the next morning, Arthur was glaring at him from the opposite bed.

' _What_?' Gilbert asked before deciding he didn't want an answer, laying back down and pulling the blankets over his head.

'I don't appreciate being hauled in front of the Dean only to have you posting videos again not even a day later,'

'I didn't know the videos would get everyone hauled in front of Dean,' Gilbert protest sleepily, then his still sleep ridden brain processed the rest of Arthur's sentence. 'How do you even know I posted another video?' He asked as he sat up. 'It's not like you watch them.'

'I don't need to watch them to know what you're doing if you leave your laptop on all night,' Arthur reply dryly, still looking irritated.

Gilbert's eyes shot to his desk, where he saw he had, in fact, left his laptop on the "video uploaded" screen all night. Something else, below the thumbnail of his video caught his eye, and Gilbert kicked off his blankets, rolled out of bed and scrambled towards the desk.

'Oh, there's no need to hide it,' Arthur said mock-helpfully. 'After all I've already seen it,'

'Oh, how about you shut up?' Gilbert mimicked Arthur's tone. 'That's not what I'm doing.'

Looking closer at the screen, Gilbert felt an upwelling of excitement.

'Over two thousand views in under nine hours… Three thousand now,' he muttered to himself. 'Maybe someone out there can help.'

'I highly doubt it,' Arthur with as much snark as usual, though he did appear slightly less self assured.

'I don't care what you…' Gilbert trailed off as he noticed the time displayed on the bottom left hand corner of his laptop screen. 'Holy shit, I'm late to class!' He pretended not to hear Arthur sniggering as he dashed out of the room with his books and a muesli bar, teeth and hair not brushed and wearing the day old clothes he'd slept in.

Returning to his room once his classes were over, Gilbert found Arthur reading a book on Mattie's bed and Erzsébet at the desk, not even bothering to hide the fact she was attempting to hack Gilbert's laptop.

'You took too long getting back,' she said by way of explanation when he entered the room. 'Now show me your notes.'

'You just let her in here?' Gilbert asked Arthur accusingly.

'You're the one who wanted to run this foolish investigation, so I figured you wouldn't mind,' Arthur smirked, but didn't look away from the book.

Erzsébet ignored both of them.

'What do you know?' she pressed again.

'If you've watched my videos then you know everything I do,'

' _That's all?_ ' Erzsébet's face contorted into a mixture of disbelief and annoyance.

'Well what do you know?' Gilbert demanded, tired of the patronisation he seemed to be receiving from everyone.

Erzsébet glared at him, and Gilbert stared right back at her – if this was going to be a battle of wills, he was not prepared to lose. The starting contest was interrupted as Roderich poked his head around the door.

'Is everything alright in here?' he asked, frowning.

'Believe me, we're just fine,' Arthur was still pretending to read his book, but Gilbert could tell he was just watching the entire situation with hidden amusement.

'Erzsébet and I were just about to compare notes,' he told Roderich. 'Right?'

'Right,' Erzsébet hissed, giving Gilbert another glare before swivelling the chair around to face Roderich with a smile. 'Thanks for dropping by to check on us, dear.'

'In that case, I'll be back in a while.' Roderich adjusted his glasses mid sentence. 'There's actually a situation a few dorms down that I'm supposed to be handling.'

'Good luck with that,' Erzsébet wished cheerily as Roderich closed the door behind him. As soon as he was gone she whirled back at Gilbert. 'Your information is useless,' she said dispassionately. 'So why should I share what I know?'

'Well you evidently haven't figured out anything with what you know either,' Gilbert argued. 'And aren't two heads better than one? We're both looking for missing people here, so it makes sense for us to work together. You know, for a leader of a club that bases itself on teamwork, you seem awfully against it.'

'How do you know the Summer Society mottos?' Erzsébet looked taken aback.

'I read the University Handbook,'

Arthur snorted from behind them, muttering an almost inaudible " _nerd_ ". Gilbert and Erzsébet ignored him.

'Fine,' Erzsébet sighed and slouched down in her seat before straightening back up. 'You know where everyone went missing from right?'

Gilbert collected his thoughts then nodded.

'Mattie, Kiku and Lili were all at parties, but they were all held at different places and hosted by different clubs,'

'Well Natalya disappeared from the Summer Society's Festival of Diana,' Erzsébet pinched the bridge of her nose. 'She was one of our fiercest Sisters – and she vanished from right under my nose.'

Gilbert suddenly felt more sympathetic for Erzsébet; no wonder so was so desperate to control the investigation – she must be feeling as guilty as he felt about not having done enough to help. Without voicing his thoughts, Gilbert nodded for her to go on.

'You're right about all of the parties being hosted by different people in different locations,' Erzsébet continued. 'But there's one thing they all had in common.'

'What?' Gilbert asked, figuring this must be the thing she knew that he didn't.

'I had my suspicions, because there was one thing at the Festival that I didn't handle. They were confirmed when I did some asking around after I realised there were other missing students – all the drinks were provided by the Alchemy Club.'

'Oh _please_ ,' Arthur's dismissive tone cut through Gilbert's speculation of whether Erzsébet was talking about his videos. 'Have you even _seen_ the Alchemy Club? They all spend so much time in the labs that all of them put together can barely carry a bowl of punch, let alone an actual person.'

'Well don't they use trolleys to wheel in the alcohol?' Gilbert retorted. 'Surely they could wheel someone out the same way. I'd say we should go ask them some questions. Even if they're not using the Mattie and Natalya as involuntary lab rats, they might know something else.'

'I'll go interrogate them now,' Erzsébet declared, picking herself up from the chair and striding towards the door. 'Tell Roderich were I've gone if he comes back.'

'What is _up_ with her,' Gilbert complained as she left. Arthur kept reading and didn't reply, just as Gilbert expected. Deciding there was no use in feeling frustrated, Gilbert came to the conclusion he needed to do some more investigating by himself and left the room to look for Roderich.

He found Roderich in his office, looking drained from whatever disturbance he'd just sorted out, but then again; Roderich always wore that pinched expression when he had to go out of his way to deal with something.

'Oh it's you,' Roderich stated bluntly as Gilbert knocked on the frame of the wide open door. 'Are you done already, I was going to check in on both of you in a bit.'

'Erzsébet said she was going to, um, _question_ the Alchemy Club,' Gilbert supplied pointedly. When it became evident Roderich saw nothing wrong with that, he continued rapidly. 'Anyway, I was hoping I'd be able to speak to Lili and Kiku again – as soon as I possibly can; I have more questions I need to ask them.

Roderich gave a long suffering sigh, taking off his glasses and beginning to polish them so slowly that Gilbert considered lying about the venture being Erzsébet's idea. Finally Roderich placed his glasses back on his face.

'Kiku is currently in class, but I'll try and arrange for him to talk to you later. I'll go find Lili now and send her to your room like last time.'

Aware he was being dismissed, Gilbert thanked Roderich for his help and returned to his room to wait.

Lili's demeanour when she arrived was completely different to the way she acted previously. The plain blouse and flowing skirt she'd worn previously had been replaced by a glittering sequined top and frayed shorts.

'Hiya!' she called from the door as if greeting an old friend. 'Am I allowed to come in or what?

'Uh sure,' Gilbert replied with an automatic response, trying to figure out if this was the same girl he'd talked to the previous week. Arthur, to his credit, didn't say anything, merely flipping the page of his book and taking a bite out of a muesli bar that Gilbert distinctly remembered having bought for himself.

'So do you have any drinks?' Lili asked as she flounced into the room.

'Umm yeah, I have some ginger beers and various cans of other soft drinks –,'

'Oh _no, no, no_ ,' Lili interrupted with a giggle. 'I meant like _alcohol_ – I know we're not supposed to have it here in the dorms, but everyone definitely hides some.' She giggled again.

'I actually don't have any,' Gilbert said with a frown. 'Are you alright?'

'I've never been better,' Lili said blithely, seeming to groove to some unheard music. 'There's a party tomorrow night that I wouldn't miss for the world.'

'Are you sure?' Gilbert asked with rising alarm. 'Because you were pretty freaked out the last time I talked to you.'

'Oh the vanishing thing?' Lili's tone remained flippant and carefree. 'Yeah that was really freaky and all, but I'm glad that it's over and honestly, I'm having the time of my life.'

The next half an hour passed with Gilbert attempting to ask more questions but getting no straightforward answers from Lili. Eventually he decided he'd just wait to talk to Kiku and sent Lili off with an excuse of having an assignment due.

'Well looks like someone learnt to have fun,' Arthur commented as she left. 'Maybe you should give that a try as well.' As usual, his comments held some bite, but Gilbert ignored him, unable to shake his feeling of unease. After a while, Arthur must have gotten tired of waiting for a retort, as he left the room without a word.

A loud knock on the door startled Gilbert as he alternated between reorganising all the information he had on the disappearances and checking the views and comments on his videos.

'Who is it?' he called, drawing a blank in trying to figure out who was behind the door. Roderich never did anything apart from playing classical music in his office loudly, neither Arthur nor Erzsébet would have bothered with knocking and Lili had no reason to come back. That was the extent of the people who would possibly come looking for Gilbert and he began to worry the dean had figured out he was the one posting the videos.

'It's Kiku,' the door was pushed open and Kiku walked in. 'Roderich said you wanted to talk to me again.'

'Err yes,' Gilbert confirmed, distracted by Kiku's unexpected change in appearance, which did nothing dissipate his unease.

Like Lili, Kiku was dressed completely differently from what he was wearing the first time Gilbert interviewed him. Instead of looking like a model student in a button up shirt and dress pants, Kiku wore a muscle shirt emblazoned with what had been the Zeta logo and baggy jeans, the front fringe he'd had slicked to one side.

'This isn't going to take long, right?' Kiku questioned, completely unobservant of the odd look Gilbert was giving him. 'Because I'm planning to bus out to the nearest town tonight for drink with friends – we're celebrating me getting sixty percent on a maths quiz.'

'Umm…' Gilbert's feelings of unease morphed into a feeling that something was very, very wrong.

Before he could say anything else though, Kiku noticed his laptop screen.

'You've been making videos?' he asked, eyes widening. 'That's _so_ cool. Is this going to be on TV?'

'Not exactly –,' Gilbert began.

'That's so _cool_ ,' Kiku repeated. 'Oh by the way, did you hear about the party tomorrow night?' He asked, suddenly shifting topic.

'Yes? Lili did mention that…' Gilbert said warily.

'Oh she told me about it too,' Kiku nodded enthusiastically. 'We've been great buds since you know,' he lowered his voice. 'That whole disappearing thing.' He shuddered dramatically then returned his voice to normal. 'Anyway, you should come to the party as well, it's got free alcohol.'

'I'm pretty busy actually, I don't think I can make it,' Gilbert quickly made an excuse. He was beginning to see patterns in the strange changes in behaviour but couldn't quite put a finger on how it all exactly fitted together.

'That's a shame,' Kiku looked disappointed. 'I guess you could go to the one next week, it's out in the woods with a huge campfire. A great place to pick up girls.' He added with a grin.

'Yeah, sure I guess,' Gilbert figured by this point he wouldn't be able to get anything useful from Kiku. 'Didn't you say you were going somewhere with friends?'

'Oh yes!' Kiku started towards the door before pausing, remembering why he'd come in the first place. 'Didn't you want to ask me some questions?'

Gilbert picked up his notebook of potential clues and waved it dismissively at Kiku.

'I figured you needed to go,' he explained. 'I can talk to you again another time.'

'Oh cool!' Kiku looked pleased at the prospect of getting to leave. 'I'll see you at a party sometime, yeah?'

'Yeah,' Gilbert replied without emotion, dropping to notebook back onto his desk and burying his face in it as soon as the door shut. ' _It's like they'd been pod-peopled_.' He groaned to himself. Kiku was celebrating a _sixty percent_ on a maths quiz, and he thought Mattie had been bad—

 _Mattie_. Gilbert sat bolt upright, a horrifying thought occurring to him.

' _No, no, no, no, no, no!_ ' he tried to force the idea out of his head, but found all the evidence was pointing at it. What if whatever was happening to Kiku and Lili had already happened to Mattie _before he even disappeared?_ It all matched up, and Gilbert knew he had to look further into all this.

Glancing at the time, Gilbert resolved to eat dinner and make a video update before finding out as much as he could about Lili, Kiku and Mattie. However he'd decided to take a nap between posting the video and researching, and slept through the alarm he'd set, waking up just in time for classes the next morning.

Cursing at the time when he woke up, Gilbert ran out of his room on an empty stomach for the second day in a row, books and muesli bars in hand, painfully aware of how long he'd been wearing the clothes he was in. Throughout the day, Gilbert became increasingly distracted by the idea that had occurred to him the previous night, until finally he decided to skip his last two classes. Returning to the dorms, Gilbert took care not to awaken a sleeping Arthur and slipped into the bathroom to shower and change into fresh comfortable clothes before settling down at his desk and beginning his research by plugging names into the university website search bar. It didn't take him long to find results, and they were chilling to say the least. Kiku Honda had graduated high school with a perfect score, competed and won prizes in international mathematics competitions and was attending Silas on a full scholarship. Similarly, Lili Zwingli had been named "Most Likely to Succeed" at her high school valedictory, and was in the process of being considered for a scholarship due to her proficiency in the Biomedicine course she was taking. Which made the way they were acting during their last interviews even more baffling – kidnapping was one thing, but completely writing over someone's personality was an another thing entirely. Feeling chills down his spine, Gilbert began searching up information on Mattie. As it turned out, Matthew Williams had also graduated with a perfect score from the high school he'd the captain of.

'Something seriously wrong is happening here,' Gilbert muttered to himself as he closed the tab on the final article he'd read about Mattie, feeling sick at the fact he'd never actually known his roommate at all.

A yawn from behind him told Gilbert that Arthur had woken up.

'Morning,' he murmured sleepily, sounding far more cheerful than usual.

'It's 5 PM,' Gilbert stated pointedly without looking away from his laptop as he heard Arthur roll out of bed and make his way towards the fridge.

'Whatever,' Arthur said as he pulled the fridge door open. 'Wait, are you skipping class?'

'I wasn't feeling well, so I left early,' Gilbert lied, gritting his teeth at Arthur's smug tone. He turned around as he heard footsteps coming back towards him. 'What? You've got a problem with that?'

'Well you do look like crap,' Arthur concluded after scrutinising Gilbert. Gilbert noted that although Arthur had also slept in his day clothes, they were somehow perfectly unwrinkled, unlike Gilbert's had been. 'There _is_ a talk on the life of Shakespeare that I don't want to miss, so try not to work yourself to death before I get back.' With that, Arthur threw something at him before turning room and leaving the room.

'Well that was about the most civilised conversation the both of us have had,' Gilbert mused before looking down at the object he'd caught just before it'd collided with his face. 'One of _my_ muesli bars, _of course_.'

Despite that detail, Gilbert unwrapped and ate the bar, before making his first proper meal of the day. He was halfway through dinner when Roderich rushed through the door without knocking, looking as wild eyed and ruffled as he had the night of the town hall.

'Gilbert!' he exclaimed breathlessly. 'You have to hide!'

'How come?' Gilbert protested, mouth half full of food.

'The Dean is coming! He's here!'

Roderich backed further into the room and Gilbert dropped his bowl, standing up as the broad shoulders of a stern, forty-something year old, olive skinned man filled the doorway.

'Uh… Hello… Sir…' Gilbert stuttered, sure he'd been caught out. 'How can I help you?'

'I'm here to speak with Mr Kirkland,' the Dean's deep voice seemed to rumble into the room.

'Who?' Gilbert blurted, drawing a blank on who he was referring to.

'Your roommate, Arthur,' the Dean explained impatiently.

'You're looking for me, Sir?' Gilbert heard Arthur's voice ask from outside the dorm.

'Indeed,' the Dean replied coldly, stepping back outside and closing the door firmly behind him.

With the Dean safely behind the closed door, Gilbert regained his courage and ran over to press his ear against the wooden panels.

'What?' he defended himself as Roderich eyed him with an expression filled with judgement. 'I just want to find out what kind of trouble my asshole roommate is in.'

'This is so childish,' Roderich shook his head disapprovingly. 'You're acting like you're six years old.'

'Oh shush,' Gilbert said, ignoring him. 'I can almost hear what the Dean is saying. Let's see…'He listened more closely. '" _I didn't go out of my way to get to accepted here to have you behaving like this"_ – damn, it sounds like he's really in trouble.' Gilbert spoke gleefully as Roderich shook his head at his antics again.

'I refuse to take part in this childishness,'

'Oh come on, if he's a bad a student as he is a roommate…' Gilbert trailed off as heard the Dean speaking again. 'Ooh – " _If you don't take care of this situation, I will_ ".'

Roderich gave him a pointed annoyed look and Gilbert conceded:

'Alright, alright,' he said, raising his hands. 'But he _so_ had it coming.'

The door began to open and Gilbert leapt away, walking backwards in the direction of his desk. Roderich straightened up to address the Dean.

'It was lovely having you visit the floor, Sir,' he said politely as Gilbert continued inching backwards slowly. The Dean nodded curtly before leaving and Arthur shoved his way past Roderich into the room. 'I think I'll be taking my leave now,' Roderich gave Gilbert one last pointed disapproving look as Arthur threw his bag heavily onto Mattie's bed. 'I'm sure there is a student crisis I'll need to be attending to elsewhere.' With that, he stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind him, leaving Gilbert with an incredible miserable looking unwanted roommate.

'Uh, did you want to talk about it?' Gilbert asked without making eye contact as Arthur threw himself angrily at the bed, suddenly feeling a wave of guilt at the not-so-nice things he'd said. 'Because a personal confrontation with the Dean of Students doesn't sound like a lot of fun.'

'But I – _"so had it coming"_ – didn't I?' Arthur hissed bitterly. 'The door's a bit thinner than you think, you know.'

Gilbert winced.

'Look, I didn't mean it like that—,' he tried to explain.

'Oh please, do you think that the Dean was here because I threw out all of your passive aggressive sticky note requests about doing the dishes?' Arthur's eyes flashed with anger, but Gilbert could see the tears threatening to well up.

'No,' he answered cautiously. 'But why was he here?'

'I said some things he didn't like,' came the blunt, closed off answer.

'What, during a seminar?'

'This age doesn't understand obligation,' Arthur replied cryptically, voice cracking as he got up and began searching the room for something, looking anywhere except at Gilbert. 'It's like an undersea anchor – impossible to escape.'

'Err,' Gilbert was thoroughly confused with what the metaphors had to do with the conversation they were having. 'So you're worried you're not living up to expectations?' He hazarded a guess.

'What would you know?' Arthur's effort at contempt was foiled by the shakiness of his voice as he continued his search.

'I'm the only child of a highly ambitious dad,' Gilbert paused and smiled as he heard Arthur snort. 'You looking for these?' he asked, picking a box of tissues up off his desk and offering them out with some sort of intent towards a truce.

Arthur studied Gilbert carefully before reaching for the box and wiping away at his tear stained face. He look as if he was about to say something else when the door burst open and Erzsébet marched into the room. Arthur's expression immediately became distant.

'I'm not in the mood to hear the two of you arguing,' he snapped before looping a leather cuff around his wrist, grabbing his bag and storming back out of the room.

Erzsébet watched him leave with a nonchalant shrug.

'Whatever,' she said, brandishing a flash drive at Gilbert. 'Turns at the weirdos at the Alchemy Club were doing some fungi related experiment at all of the party and have been photo tracking every single one of them. So naturally I checked out all of the photos myself, and found something you might want to be worried about.'

* * *

 **Notes:**

 **Not many new characters or plot elements were introduced in this chapter, but can you figure out which Hetalia character the Dean is? I'll probably reveal who he is in the end notes of the next chapter. Probably. It depends on how far plotwise I get next chapter.**

 **At any rate, feel free to leave me a comment and I should hopefully have another update written by 1 March.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Late update is almost three months late, but this writer was struggling with the workload that comes with second year uni. Man, I wish I was a first year again. But anyway, here's your update.**

* * *

 _A worried looking Gilbert adjusts his chair into the direct view of his webcam, before taking a few moments to begin speaking. "To everyone who's watching this – good evening. Erzsébet just left my room a few minutes ago – and no, she wasn't confronting me about anything this time," Gilbert tries to smile at his own joke, but his expression turns serious again seconds later. "She did give me even more information to have to process though, and I figured the best way for me to understand all of it would be to explain everything I learnt in the past day to all of you." He explains everything that he'd found out since he'd posted the previous video; from the previously pristine scholastic track records of Mattie, Kiku and Lili, to the visit from the Dean and the confrontation he'd had with Arthur. "Of course Arthur left as soon as Erzsébet barged in, so we're probably back to being antagonistic. Or rather, that was just what I thought before Erzsébet showed me exactly what was on the flash drive she confiscated from the Alchemy Club. I'll see if I can show you too… Hang on…" Gilbert leans forwards towards the camera, his downwards look of concentration and the clacking of the keyboard the only things to be seen or heard for the better half of a minute. "Got it!" Gilbert cries triumphantly as he disappears from the screen, being replaced by a photo taken at the Athletic Team's party. "Here's Lili talking to a guy two and a half times her height at the Athletics icebreaker," a circle appears around the two people in question "But it's not that athlete with the spiky hair and goofy smile we're worried about." A second circle appears further behind them as Gilbert continues. "Right here, staring at the two of them, is my muesli-bar-stealing, sleeps-to-ungodly-hours, last person you'd expect at an_ athletics _party roommate, Arthur." A second photo of people sitting around a table replaces the first on the screen. "If you thought that was just coincidence – so did I – until Erzsébet pulled up another two. This is the informal dinner Kiku was at, and two seats away from him, watching him intently, is again – Arthur." A third photo taken at a forest clearing bedecked in fairy lights and flaming torches fills the screen. "So maybe a third year literature major being at a Chess Club function isn't too much of a stretch," Gilbert acknowledges. "But check this out – the Festival of Diana, an all girls party, hosted by an all girls society… Nice tunics and weapons they have there I guess… In clear shot at the centre is Natalya; the missing Summer Sister. And right there behind that tree…" A circle appears, drawing the eye to a previously hard to spot figure. "Is – you guessed it – Arthur." The photo zooms into the circle, confirming the identity of the figure. "So at best, he's just a creeper. At worst, we're looking at him being a kidnapper." The photo vanishes and Gilbert returns to the screen. "Erzsébet wanted to get her hands on him – find out what he knew about Natalya – but I convinced her it'd be a better idea to put him under surveillance, it wasn't like she'd easily be able to find him after he'd stormed out anyway." Gilbert smiled wryly at having had to defend Arthur from Erzsébet. "She told me I should watch my back after she agreed. And I'm still not sure if she meant I should be wary of Arthur or herself. Either way, I'll be starting the surveillance as soon as post this video, using the only camera I have; my trusty webcam." Gilbert's arm reaches towards the camera and it becomes obvious in a moment that he was patting the top of his laptop screen. "Let's hope I don't accidently unplug my laptop, and I'll update as soon as the surveillance comes up with something interesting." The screen fades to black._

* * *

Having uploaded the video, and turned the webcam back on, Gilbert learnt from his previous mistake and left a half finished assignment on his laptop screen after he hit the button to record, closing the "video uploaded" tab. Although it was only barely past seven, he felt dead tired – a result of both the consecutive nights with little sleep and the amount of information his brain had tried to process. His mind idled back to the confrontation he'd had with Arthur, and the almost-truce that followed. Gilbert supposed that didn't matter anymore, now that there was incriminating evidence that he was on the scene of at least three disappearances. Figuring there was nothing left to do until the surveillance turned up with something, Gilbert changed into pyjamas and watched bird videos on his phone until he fell asleep.

Arthur was sitting cross legged on the bed across from him – reading a book despite the dim level of light in the room – when Gilbert awoke.

'What time is it?' Gilbert asked, propping himself up and trying to act as if he'd never seen the Alchemy Club's photos.

'Just past six thirty,' Arthur replied without looking up from his page. 'I didn't realise you could get up this early.' The remark was less scathing than usual and Gilbert hoped that he didn't suspect he was under surveillance.

'Says you,' Gilbert retorted, attempting to keep a nervous edge from entering his voice. 'You were asleep at five in the afternoon yesterday.'

Arthur glanced up from his book, sighed, and slid a bookmark between the pages.

'I was taking a nap,' he explained.

'Oh, of course,' Gilbert wasn't sure he sounded convinced and quickly changed the subject. 'So where did you disappear off to last night?'

'Why do you think that's any of your business?' Arthur's tone made it clear he was not interested in an answer.

Gilbert shrugged, muttered "fair enough", and kicked the covers off of himself before getting out of bed. He was fairly certain by this point that Arthur had no clue he was being watched, and he intended to keep it that way. Now if only he would leave the room sometime soon, so that the previous night's footage could be examined.

'You know, you left your laptop on all night…'

Gilbert froze on his way to the bathroom.

'So?' he forced himself to ask.

If Arthur noticed how oddly tense he was, he made no comment, merely flashing a smile that hinted at mockery.

'Aren't you worried about the _damage to the environment_? Mister " _Shouldn't the university pay more attention to what happens to probably drunk students?".'_

His grins widened as he imitated Gilbert's voice, and Gilbert felt his fear melt into annoyance.

'I do _not_ sound like that,' he muttered as he continued into the bathroom. 'I do care about the environment, but hey, I leave my laptop on power saving mode just in case I happen to fall asleep while procrastinating an assignment.' He called out as he closed the door, mentally congratulating himself on the quick excuse he'd come up with. As he began to brush his teeth, he thought he heard a laugh from outside the door.

When Gilbert returned from his classes, the room was empty. Just to be sure that his potentially-a-kidnapper roommate wasn't around, Gilbert peered through behind the slightly ajar bathroom door, then doubled back to shut the door of the dorm room. Only then did he pause the webcam footage and begin to trawl through it at 4x speed. He wasn't alone for long. The door creaked open and Gilbert slammed down the screen of his laptop before realising how suspicious that looked. Trying to thinking of an excuse, he turned around to see Erzsébet wearing the slightly impatient expression she seemed to have reversed just for him. Gilbert swivelled back around in his chair.

'If you're going to if I found anything with the surveillance,' he began as he logged back into his laptop. 'The answer is "not yet".'

'Then why shouldn't I just go and shake some answers out of that roommate of yours?' Erzsébet growled with frustration.

'Because then he'd know we were onto something, and then we wouldn't get any further evidence or answers!'

Erzsébet was silent for half a minute.

'You said this would get answers,' she accused.

'Hey! It takes time to get through half a day of footage, even if I skip past the times when he's not on camera.' Gilbert resisted the urge to roll his eyes, though he was fairly certain Erzsébet couldn't see his expression, he was likely to receive a violent reaction on the off chance she did. 'Besides, it's been less than twenty four hours since we set the surveillance up, so maybe just chill a little.'

'I can't " _chill_ " when there's a missing Sister,' she began stridently, lowering her tone as Gilbert opened his mouth with a retort. 'I know, I know – you're trying your best. But I just feel like we're not doing enough, that's all.'

Erzsébet eyed the two beds in the room and slumped down onto the neatest – which just so happened to be Gilbert's. Figuring that was as much of an apology as he was ever going to get from her, Gilbert continued watching the footage, hearing Erzsébet sit up to look at it over his shoulder.

'So far, this is only confirming what we already know.' Gilbert said whilst turning around, deciding to keep Erzsébet in the loop, even if nothing of important had yet been discovered. 'Arthur's a terrible roommate who keeps eating my muesli bars.'

Erzsébet muttered something that sounded like _priorities_ under her breath, but her eyes didn't falter from the screen. Gilbert shrugged and turned back around.

'Just saying,' he commented. 'And apart from that, he doesn't seem to eat anything else apart from that "protein slurry" – or whatever Roderich claims it is – he keeps in the soy milk container. Seriously, I don't know how he's even alive on that diet.'

'Don't you live on the exact same thing?' Erzsébet asked with some amusement. 'Just substituting the protein slurry for those soft drinks _you_ keep in the fridge.'

'Oh, so you do notice other things aside from the latest thing I've done wrong by your books,' Gilbert couldn't help quipping. 'Can I offer you a ginger beer?'

'No thank you,' Erzsébet replied in a prickly tone. 'How about we concentrate on the issues at hand? Surely, there's _something_ else your camera has picked up.'

'Apart from the fact Arthur got back here just before daybreak then slept till the early afternoon? Nope. But again, this is only the first day of surveillance. If you're so desperate to find out more, why don't you go follow him or something?'

'You know what?' Erzsébet sounded like she'd just reached a revelation. 'That's exactly what I'll do.'

'I was being sarcastic…' Gilbert said slowly.

'And I'm still going to do it,' Erzsébet responded bullishly. 'I don't want to waste anymore of my time. Contact me the next time Arthur leaves this room.'

'Oh and how am I going to do that? It's not like I have your number or anything.'

'Message the Summer Society page or go through Roderich. Or better yet, do both.' With that she stood and strode purposefully out of the room.

For the next few days Gilbert did just that, with Roderich looking more and more disapproving each time he did. One time he even made a speech about the moral issues of stalking, and from then on Gilbert just stuck with messaging the Summer Society page. To her increasing frustration, Erzsébet never found out where Arthur went. She'd tail him across campus and then into any building, and from there, he'd vanish, his trail going cold, leaving Erzsébet to storm back into Gilbert's dorm in a temper, demanding to know if he'd found anything in the surveillance footage. That he had – apart from being apparently nocturnal, Arthur had been caught on film doing no small number of odd things; such as glaring at a pile of papers until they spontaneously combusted. Besides Gilbert had video footage of Arthur hefting a large duffel bag like a sack of feathers, a bag that Gilbert later could not budge at all, even with all of his bodyweight. If these new revelations about his roommate weren't troubling enough, Gilbert had begun to have nightmares, something that he put down on all the soft drinks he'd been consuming lately. Even then the nightmares were disturbing – a dark faceless mass under his bed, the sound of a girl crying, the sheets seeping blood until he drowned in them and finally woke up. After half-heartedly working on some homework, and trawling through another four hours of footage, Gilbert decided to finally go read the comments on the latest few of his video updates. The majority of the comments mentioned the same thing, that his nightmares sounded the ones Lili had had leading up to her disappearance and mind alteration, and with a lurch of his stomach, Gilbert realised that they were right. He nearly jumped out of his seat when the door opened as he was reading a theory one of his viewers had had.

'What's with the jumpiness?' Arthur asked dispassionately as he entered. 'You look like you haven't left this room all day. What's the matter, you failing a class?'

'My grades are fine!' Gilbert retorted, minimising the window he'd been looking at. 'I've just been having some weird dreams.'

He immediately debated whether he should have said that, then decided there was no point hiding it – if Arthur was the one behind the kidnappings, then this might even get him some answers.

Arthur dumped his bag onto his bed then yawned, moving to sit diagonally from Gilbert, one knee propped up and his elbow draped over it, hand tilted under his chin.

'Dreams are supposed to be strange,' he said languidly. 'Last night I had a dream I was trapped under a bed. Above me a woman in a white nightgown was crying. Her tears were blood and they rain down under the edges until I drowned.' He shrugged, and Gilbert would have believed he'd had an oddly similar dream to his if he didn't have footage proving Arthur had not been in the room at all the previous night.

'That _is_ weird,' he ended up agreeing. 'But you don't seem to have lost any sleep over it.' He hoped the accusation in his voice wasn't too obvious.

Arthur sighed with mild annoyance, dropping his leg over the edge of his bed and reaching over to rummage through his bag.

'Look, if it's really bothering you that much,' he began. 'I can give you something for it.' He didn't wait for Gilbert to reply, pulling something out of his bag and pressing the small, furry object into Gilbert's palm.

'This isn't a rabbit's foot, is it?' Gilbert pulled a face as he looked down at what was most definitely a rabbit's foot.

'It is,' Arthur confirmed with an amused smile. 'Surely you know it's a powerful good luck charm – wards off bad omens.'

'Thank you?' Gilbert couldn't keep the suspicious questioning tone from his voice. 'This is uncharacteristically nice of you.'

'Well, I can't have you losing the plot and burning the place down.' Arthur responded flippantly, smirking as Gilbert made to complain. 'In all seriousness though, you're pretty decent as roommates go, and I wouldn't want you to burn out and get replaced by someone more annoying.'

Gilbert blinked; again, there was that uncharacteristic niceness.

'Seeing that you're being so friendly now,' he began cautiously. 'You wouldn't happen to tell me where you go when you disappear at night, would you?'

'You're pushing at your luck,' Arthur laughed, before trailing off to a whispered. ' _But maybe one day I'll let you find out_.' He leaned over to tap Gilbert's nose playfully and then stood up.

Still clutching the rabbit's foot, and feeling slightly dazed, Gilbert almost forgot to message Erzsébet as Arthur left the room.

'That was weird,' he said to himself after informing Erzsébet that Arthur was leaving the dorms. 'My arsehole roommate is suddenly being nice to me and giving me kind of weird presents.'

And what could that last thing he'd said and the nose tap possibly have meant? Gilbert suddenly came to a conclusion and felt a shiver down his spine.

'My arsehole, probably a kidnapper roommate is suddenly being nice to me and giving me weird gifts because _I'm next_.'

The certainty that he was going to be the next to be abducted didn't help with Gilbert's patience when Erzsébet showed up to inform him that she'd lost Arthur once again.

'What is up with you?' Erzsébet demanded after Gilbert told her he was busy and glanced nervously at the corner where he'd stashed the rabbit foot charm.

'Oh nothing,' Gilbert could hear the tinge of hysteria in his own voice. 'Just that I'm probably my roommate's next victim and you're no help.'

'Back up there. What did you say?'

'If you're going to go off at me for saying that "you're no help". Save your breath, because it's true.'

'Not that part,' Erzsébet said brusquely. 'What do you mean you're the next victim?'

'Well Arthur's suddenly playing nice and giving me weird presents and hinting that I'll soon find out what he gets up to at night. So what else could that possibly mean?' Gilbert asked with no less hysteria than before.

Erzsébet snorted, looking amused, but offered no explanation when Gilbert looked at her questioningly.

'Okay, let's just say that you are the next in line to be kidnapped. What are you going to do?'

'I have no clue,' Gilbert confessed glumly. 'You know, I have confronted Roderich with all the weird in the surveillance footage, but he keeps trying to explain it with something normal.'

'Ah, that's Roderich for you,' Erzsébet murmured fondly, before snapping back into focus and glaring at Gilbert. 'He's doing his best.' She affirmed. 'Now what's your plan?'

'I already said I don't know,' Gilbert groaned, resigning to his fate before catching something in her tone and narrowing his eyes Erzsébet. 'What are you going at over there?'

Erzsébet smiled smugly.

'Unlike you, I actually know when things are happening around here, and I just so happen to know that there's a Faculty Club meeting happen at six o'clock tonight.' When Gilbert looked at her blankly in response, she huffed impatiently. 'Look, who else do we know who seems to have an interest in keeping Arthur in check?'

Gilbert did not like the direction this conversation was going.

'You don't mean…' he began hesitantly.

'Yes, the Dean,' Erzsébet finished with no less impatience that before. 'I'm going to crash that Faculty Club meeting and show the evidence directly to him. In fact, I had this planned even before you started freaking out.'

'Wait!' Gilbert exclaimed, chasing after Erzsébet as she left the room. 'This is insane! Aren't we supposed to avoid the Dean at all costs?'

'We have compelling evidence,' she replied without breaking pace. 'Don't even try to stop me – I have a Sister to find.'

They argued the entire way into the staff commons, which probably factored into them being bodily hauled from the meeting before Erzsébet even got close to the Dean.

'This is all you fault!' she fumed at Gilbert after they'd been deposited into the cool evening air.

'Hey, the second I stopped arguing with you, you started arguing with a clubs coordinator about funding!' Gilbert countered.

'I saw a chance to make a point and I used it! As leader of the Summer Society I should always act in its best interest!' Erzsébet faltered as she noticed the object in Gilbert's hands. 'What is that?'

'A photo I pulled off the wall while we were being dragged out,' he brandished the frame in from of Erzsébet's face. 'Take a look at this.'

'A photo from the Dean's special council meeting in 1954?' she asked dubiously reading the etching on it. 'What does that have to do with anything?'

'I know there's about seven people in this picture, but take a look at this one,'

'Oh,' Erzsébet said as her eyes fell upon the person Gilbert was pointing at – a person who bore an eerily strong resemblance to a certain replacement roommate.'

'I mean, we don't know if this is Arthur's grandfather or great uncle, there's no names on this anywhere,' Gilbert frowned as he peered at the photo again.

'The library,'

'Is it even open at this time? I mean, it's nearly seven.'

'The subbasements archives will have more photographs,' Erzsébet continued without answering Gilbert's question. 'Their records go right back to when this university was first established in the 17th century.'

The sky was mostly dark by the time they made it across the campus to the library. Undeterred by the streams of people leaving the building, Erzsébet elbowed her way through the crowd, followed closely by Gilbert.

'That's better,' she muttered as they made it into the empty building, neither of them paying heed to the faint rustling they heard.

Gilbert glanced around the library, for whatever reason there was something _…off_ …about the way it looked. In the dying light, the library seemed somewhat different from how he remembered seeing it in daylight. Gilbert shuddered, deciding to believe that he was imagining things.

'Here's the stairs to the first subbasement,' Erzsébet's voice was hushed despite the fact there were no librarians to quiet them.

The rustling grew louder as they descended into the darkness, both Gilbert and Erzsébet switching on their phone torches in order to see.

'Do you hear that?' Gilbert hissed to Erzsébet.

'Someone probably left a fan on,' she replied irritably, voice just as low.

'Why are we talking so quietly then?'

'Because we're in a library. It's got something to do with psychology and I'm a Bio major, so don't ask me.'

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Erzsébet felt along the wall until she found a switch. Light flooded into the subbasement, revealing that the ceiling was barely half a metre about their head.

'Luckily for us everything from the last century will be on this floor,' Erzsébet explained. 'The stuff from the fifties' is this way.'

'How do you know this place so well?' Gilbert asked absently, attention mostly focused on the rustling that sounded like it was growing louder.

'I needed to find the thesis of one of my professors to use as a reference for a paper I was writing.' Erzsébet shrugged. 'It was no big deal. Though I _have_ never been down here after dark before.' She stopped walking suddenly and Gilbert wondered if it was because she thought the noises were getting nearer too, but she merely pulled the staff records of 1954 off the shelf with a small cry of victory and tossed them at Gilbert. 'You find out who the guy in the photos is, and I'll see if I can find anything else that's useful.'

Gilbert did as he was told, flipping through the aging documents and squinting at the tiny mug shots of the faculty of 1954. Some faces felt oddly familiar, but then again Gilbert might just have seen them in the portraits that hung in every building on the campus, besides there was only one face he was supposed to be interested in, even if the continuous disembodied skittering noises were effecting his concentration. Turning the page, he saw from the corner of his eye, Erzsébet shake her head as she pulled out what was apparently a misfiled folder, then freeze as she saw something drop out of it. Gilbert would have questioned her about it, if it weren't for something in his own folder. Arthur's arrogant face stared out at him from the top of the page he was on, eyes piercing even in a small black and white photograph. The information beside the photo read; _Arthur Kirkland, special council member from 1950_. Gilbert shivered, of course, this could always be a coincidence – after all, it wasn't unheard of for people to be named after their ancestors. Still, Gilbert figured he ought to show Erzsébet, they did have an agreement to share information, however trivial, even if Erzsébet tended to delay relaying information to him. He found her in the 1970s' aisle, rifling furiously through a stack of documents.

'Look at this,' Gilbert interrupted her search, pointing out the name and the photo.

Erzsébet nodded like she already knew.

'I found records of vanishing students in 1955,' she pointed to a file on the ground beside her. 'And a folder from 1975 filed in the wrong place, but look at what was in that folder.' She handed him a photo of a group of graduating students, but one face and name stood out from all the others – Arthur Kirkland. 'This folder I have here documents another case of missing students – in 1975.'

'1955, 1975,' Gilbert muttered, thinking frantically. 'They're twenty years apart, we should –,'

'Check out the records from 1995?' Erzsébet butted in. 'Yeah, that's what I was thinking.'

Gilbert opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it. The pervasive sound that they'd heard since they entered the library was still continuing and it was really getting onto his nerves. He nodded and they made their way back toward the direction they'd first come in from.

The 1990s sections revealed more photos of Arthur, once again posing as a student, his name written all over the backs of the each of the garishly saturated colour photos. Apart from the slightly longer hair, he looked exactly the same, down to the choice of punk inspired all black clothing. A file on 1995 revealed that yet more students had disappeared that year, and at this point it was most definitely looking as though Arthur had everything to do with it. However, there were more pressing issues at hand, the rustling had suddenly spiked to a crescendo, filling the entire squat room they were in.

'Erzsébet!' Gilbert hissed, or was it a scream? With the noise in the room reaching near deafening levels, he couldn't really be certain. 'You can't pretend you don't hear it now!'

Erzsébet ignored him, looking instead at something about his head, her expression as close to fear as he'd ever seen it.

'Duck!' she yelled before Gilbert could ask her what she'd seen. Pulling him to the ground, Erzsébet grabbed a heavy tome donated by the alumni association from the shelf and held it above their heads as a shield as Gilbert saw what was heading towards them.

A vortex of papers was whirring through the subbasement. Books, files and the entire card catalogue system of the floor were skittering at them from far end of the room.

'What are you doing?' Gilbert asked as the first cards pelted into Erzsébet's makeshift shield. 'Let's run! There stairs are right there!'

Even as the last few words left his mouth, Gilbert saw with a sinking feeling that he was wrong. Next to the light switched, where the stairs had been only fifteen minutes ago, was a section of blank wall in the same dull gray as the rest of the room.

'Yeah, we've gonna have to find another way out of here,' Erzsébet spoke grimly, before throwing the book open as a second wave of papers hurtled towards them. She moved a second too late, as a long thin line of blood appeared down her left arm, left by a particularly vengeful file from the 1930s'. Gilbert looked around as Erzsébet hissed in pain beside him, noticing a detail that had eluded him previously.

'This floor isn't completely underground,' he said. 'You have to go up a flight of stairs to get to the ground floor.'

'Why is this relevant?' Erzsébet growled, fending off another wave of attack that was driving them backwards. 'We've already established that there _are_ no stairs here.'

'I need you to throw that book you have at that window,' he pointed at a thin sliver of glass towards of the ceiling of the room, one that had a shelf located conveniently beside it. 'Then we're going to climb that shelf and end up on the grass outside the library… If we don't just _die_ in the attempt.'

Erzsébet had looked at him dubiously, but less than half an hour later, they were sitting mostly unscathed saved for a few shallow cuts in Gilbert's dorm, being lectured furiously by Roderich.

'And then _what did you do_?' Roderich was still glaring at the two of them, pacing back and forth through the room. 'You _broke a library window to escape death_.'

'Yeah okay, we get the point,' Gilbert interrupted, finally having had enough. 'But the important thing here is; every two decades Arthur Kirkland reappears at Silas – it's like he hasn't figured out that nobody's going to believe that a family passed on the same name for four consecutive generations – and every time he does, students vanish without a trace, with no record of them ever appearing again.'

Roderich blinked owlishly at Gilbert's interruption, as unwilling to believe what they'd found as he had been when they'd first gotten back from the library.

'I know it doesn't make sense,' Gilbert pressed on, frustrated. 'None of this does. Not the super strength, the practically nocturnal sleep pattern, the spontaneous combustion, the fact that what we've found makes him at least eighty years old…'

'Of course it makes sense,' it was Erzsébet's turn to interrupt. 'We've all known since the incident with the blood in the soy milk carton that he's a vampire, right?'

* * *

 **I've learnt my lesson and won't be making any promises about update times.**

 **Comment about what you think will happen and I'll probably tell you if you're on the right track**


	4. Chapter 4

**I did mention there wasn't an update schedule for this didn't I? There was meant to be a backstory part to this chapter but it got a little too long, so I cut it off and will be posting it as the next chapter in a day or so after I've edited it to fit the chapter formats.**

* * *

 _Gilbert appears on camera, looking as sleep-deprived as he has been for the last few videos, dark circles under his eyes. Evidently, the nightmares have not stopped. After a moment of deciding what to say, Gilbert finally speaks: "So, Erzsebet came up with this, and I have to agree that all the evidence seems to point to it...There's no other way to put this but; Arthur's a vampire." He grimaces at how ridiculous his words sound. "Before you all call me crazy, I'll tell you that Roderich has already done that." Clearing his throat, he straightens his back; mimicking Roderich's pitch and posture. "_ He's not a vampire! Vampires don't exist! He's just a light adverse octogenarian with extreme haemoglobin deficiency and really good skin! _" He drops his voice back to normal with a grin. "That's exactly what he said, word-for-word. And you've got to admit it probably sounds even more ridiculous than our vampire theory." Gilbert becomes serious again. "At this point I should probably tell you all how we arrived at the theory." He gives a run through of what happened at the library, describing to the best of his ability the photos they'd abandoned in their haste to escape. "Now, you may be wondering what my plans are, seeing that I'm probably in line to be the next victim of a_ vampire _. Well it's not plain 'run', because Erzsébet has come up with a plan to trap and question Arthur… by using me as_ bait _. I don't really like that idea, but it seems like the best bet at this point." He concludes the sentence grimly and with resolve. "So the plan is goes like this: seeing Arthur's suddenly being friendly to me, I should start being friendly back and take the opportunity to invite him to one of the weekly parties in the woods that the former Zeta leaders hosts without university permission. It's a controlled situation for an easy abduction, except that Erzsébet will also be attending the party with some of her Sisters, in her words: '_ bearing the crass advances of the Zetas _' in order to rescue me before I get killed or pod-personed and detain Arthur for questioning." Gilbert pauses to let his viewers take that information in. "I know it sounds risky, but I wouldn't have agreed to it if I could have thought of anything else." He takes a quick glace behind him at the door. "Arthur's going to be back anytime now, so wish me luck. See you in the next update – that is; unless there isn't one." His attempt at humour falls flat and Gilbert quickly and awkwardly shuts off the camera._

* * *

Heart racing the entire time, Gilbert uploaded what could possibly be his last video. He'd taken a risk by waiting until morning to record the video, but having weighed the other risks he'd be facing soon enough, Gilbert had decided he'd needed some sleep. Not that he'd gotten much; with the disturbing repeating nightmares he kept having. It was still very early in the morning – just before seven – but from the surveillance videos, it was clear that Arthur was anything but consistent. He sat back down on his bed and pulled one of his prescribed texts from his bag; if he had to act natural, he might as well get some work done. After trying to concentrate on a page for what felt like an age, Gilbert checked his phone to find that barely two minutes had past. Groaning, he threw the book down before picking it back up, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it of all thoughts of impending doom. He opened the textbook again with a sigh, forcing himself to sit still and take in the words on the pages – even if their meaning refused to stay in his mind.

Finally the door to the dorm opened, and Arthur entered, looking surprised to see Gilbert awake.

'You're up early,' he stated, voicing that surprise.

'Couldn't sleep,' Gilbert yawned, looking up from the book. 'Thought I'd do my readings instead.'

'Are you still having nightmares then?' Arthur walked a few paces closer to peer at him.

Despite the urge to turn away from the scrutiny, Gilbert shrugged instead.

'I'm sure it's just stress,' he lied. 'I have a quiz coming up soon.'

Arthur snorted and turned away, losing interest, and started to search the area Gilbert had last hidden his stash of muesli bars.

'You looking for one of these?' Gilbert asked, waving a muesli bar he'd fished out from under his bed at Arthur.

Arthur looked at him suspiciously.

'It's not expired or anything,' Gilbert assured. 'Well not yet anyway. There was a quick sale at the supermarket and I bought too many.'

It was only half a lie, and Arthur seemed convinced.

'Thank you,' he took the muesli bar with some bemusement and put it into his bag. 'Well, as much as I'd like to stay and talk, I have somewhere else I need to be right now.'

'I guess I'll see you later today?' Gilbert called, but the door had already closed behind him. 'Or maybe not.'

Great. Did Arthur know what they'd figured out about him? Surely he had no reason to, and Gilbert certainly hoped not. Quashing a suddenly urge to message Erzsébet in panic, he took a deep breath and decided to just go for a run before class.

Arthur wasn't in the dorm when Gilbert returned from classes, nor did he return before Gilbert decided to go to bed. A feeling of dread sat in the pit of his stomach, and it wasn't much of a surprise when he had another nightmare.

He was flailing in an ocean of blood, desperately trying to keep himself from going under as waves crashed against him, filling his nostrils with metallic liquid. Something grabbed at his ankle and he struggled to pull himself free.

'No! Let go of me!' he cried before he was dragged under.

He woke up panting and drenched in cold sweat. He caught a flickering from the corner of his eye and sat up to see something looming in the window of the room. Was he truly awake, or was he stuck in yet another creepy dream? Gilbert fumbled for his lamp. Light washed through the room and revealed Arthur sitting on the windowsill, holding a lighter in his hand.

'You're back,' he rasped, fighting back a hysterical laugh. So there hadn't been a monster in the window. Or perhaps there was. But at least it was one he knew.

'I've been in here for a while. You had another nightmare?' Arthur didn't look away from the window, flicking the lighter on again.

'Yeah,' Gilbert admitted; it wasn't as if he could easily deny it. 'What are you doing up so late?'

'Stargazing,' came the distance answer. 'As much as the earth changes; the stars always remain, always the same. And we are nothing in comparison – our lives are meaningless, so short and insignificant.' Finally he turned to face the room. 'Come take a look.' He said before Gilbert could make a Lit major quip, sliding over to make room on the sill.

Gilbert moved in a trance like state to the window, he couldn't be certain if their plans had been blown yet, but if they hadn't this could be his chance to set them into action. The window wasn't big, and he was acutely aware of how close they were as he sat down next to Arthur in order to look up towards the sky. It was an unusually clear night and the stars shone like pinpricks, cold and bright against the velvet darkness of the sky, stretching in a patchwork as far as the eye could see. Gilbert gasped involuntarily with awe and Arthur grinned.

'What did I tell you?'

Despite the smug tone, Gilbert detected that Arthur was sharing something personal – that he'd let his guard down. This was his chance. He almost felt bad, it seemed like he was betraying some sort of momentary trust, but at the same time, Arthur was likely plotting for something sinister to happen to him. So Gilbert smiled back and hoped it didn't look too forced.

'They are pretty amazing,' he agreed. 'Do you think the sky will still be this clear tomorrow?'

'Maybe,' Arthur frowned, not following. 'Why?'

'I'm just wondering what the stars will look like from the woods. The Zetas are throwing another party there and I thought I'd go and de-stress for a bit. Hey, you want to come?'

'Someone needs to tell the Zetas that they were disbanded years ago,' Arthur said an amused shake of his head.'

'So you don't want to come then?' Gilbert asked flippantly, acting as if the plan Erzsébet had come up with hadn't hinged on this. 'I mean I was just being friendly, seeing as we sort of started off on the wrong foot as roommates and all.'

'I never said I wasn't interested.' Even with the lamp on, the room was still dark and Gilbert couldn't quite read Arthur's expression. 'I think I'd like to come.'

Gilbert faked a yawn to hide his feeling of success.

'I think I'll go back to sleep now,' he mumbled. 'Goodnight.'

'Goodnight,' he heard from the windowsill as he pulled his covers around himself.

Erzsébet was in his room when Gilbert returned from classes the next day. With the nerves he had over their plans that night, he'd been a wreck all day – losing track of what lecturers were saying and answering the wrong questions when called upon in tutorials. He almost yelped when Erzsébet stood up from his chair, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw it was only her.

'What are you doing here?' he demanded, trying not to think of his embarrassing display mere seconds ago. 'I have things to do!'

'Like what?' Erzsébet retorted, raising an eyebrow, her lips curved in malicious amusement. Underneath the left sleeve of her three quarters shirt, Gilbert could see the scab from where the folder had cut her arm that night in the library.

'Like psyching myself up for the party!' Gilbert's voice betrayed his rising hysteria. 'I just really don't like the idea of being _bait_.'

'But you had no better ideas,' Erzsébet replied dismissively. 'Look, I'm here to talk about the party. I took the liberty to go talk to Lili and Kiku today – and they're worse than ever. We need to find out how to get them back to normal, so no getting cold feet. Also both of them are planning to go to the party tonight and I couldn't talk them out of it so I've asked some more of my Sisters to come and keep an eye on them. All you have to do is make sure Arthur goes to that party and lure him away from the crowd. Which shouldn't be too hard.' She added with a knowing expression.

'How do you even know that?' Gilbert asked with scepticism.

'Aren't you the next victim?' Erzsébet responded serenely with a question. 'If anything, he'll be trying to get you away from the crowd.

'Now,' she said decisively. 'I have to go coordinate the Sisters who are coming with me tonight. You have fun psyching yourself up.'

Gilbert stared at her until she left the room.

'I really hate you sometimes,' he muttered after the door had closed.

He spent the next few hours shifting from place to place in the room, picking up a book and attempting to read it from time to time. He was sitting at his desk, staring a worksheet he had yet to start, when Arthur returned to the dorm. As usual, Arthur was dressed completely in black and spiked leather bands adorned his wrists. What was unusual however; was the bottle of champagne and the two glasses he carried. He smiled as Gilbert whirled around in his chair, shutting the door behind him. Gilbert eyed the bottle and glasses in his hands.

'There's going to be alcohol at the party you know,' he said, hoping his nerves didn't show in his voice.

'If you really want to see the stars in the woods, do it on a day when there isn't a party with a giant bonfire going on – it just ruins the view.' Arthur murmured, sitting down on his bed and expertly pouring the champagne. 'No, I thought we could just look at the stars in here.' He handed Gilbert a glass.

'A-alcohol isn't allowed in the dorms,' Gilbert couldn't stop himself from stammering.

Arthur chuckled.

'Surely you've broken rules before,' he took a sip from his own glass. 'You did keep posting inflammatory videos after you were told to stop.'

'That…was different,'

Gilbert checked his phone, cursing mentally as he remembered it was dead. He'd being planning to charge it before his talk with Erzsébet. Instead he wheeled himself towards his laptop, hoping to send a message to Erzsébet about this hitch in the plan.

'What are you doing?' Arthur put his hand over the lid of the laptop as Gilbert made to open it. 'Didn't you say you were trying to de-stress?' He asked teasingly.

'Ah…yes,' Gilbert replied weakly as he was spun in his chair away from his lifeline.

'That's better,' Arthur said appraisingly as he sat back down opposite Gilbert. He took another sip of his drink. 'They served champagne at the first party I ever attended.' Arthur divulged, swirling the pale liquid slowly around the flute.'

'You make it sound like that was a hundred years ago,' Gilbert said nervously with a laugh. At this point he was downright terrified and he was sure it showed.

'It feels like longer than that,' Arthur stared into his glass, seemingly too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice Gilbert's discomfort. 'Like a bright light far away, seen from underwater.' He looked away to offer Gilbert a smile. 'Ah, I sound like a nostalgic idiot tonight.'

'It sounds like a nice memory,' somehow Gilbert managed to speak without his voice quavering.

Arthur hummed but didn't answer, lost in thought again. Gilbert used the silence to try to even out his breathing.

'You haven't been keeping your charm with you,' Arthur stated after a while.

There was no accusation in his voice, but still Gilbert squirmed. How could Arthur possibly know?

'Uh…' he started.

'You probably don't like the idea of carrying a rabbit foot around, but it can't stop your nightmares unless you do it.'

'I'll make sure to do that later then,' Gilbert mumbled, not voicing the doubt he had that he'd even make it out of the night alive and sane.

Arthur shook his head and set down his champagne, before looking Gilbert up and down. Gilbert's mind screamed at him to run, but his muscles remained frozen in the chair.

'Look at you,' he mused, more to himself than anything. 'Entirely too tense, so young and naïve. I really should know better. What am I even doing?' He shook his head again.

Under normal circumstances Gilbert would have asked if he'd just been insulted, but given the dire straits he was currently in, he kept his mouth shut. Arthur got up and walked around to Gilbert's side, leaning onto an arm of the chair. He brushed a hand into Gilbert's hair and Gilbert felt the cold metal of the wrist cuff spikes press briefly against his cheek. Then Arthur began to lean downwards.

 _This is it_ , Gilbert thought, _I'm going to die or at the very least get brainwashed._ Cold sweat trickled down the back of his neck, and his breathing sounded loud to his own ears.

Neither of them heard the door open.

'What the hell are you thinking!'

Gilbert had never been so glad to hear Erzsébet's voice. Arthur's head snapped upwards and towards the door, but it was already too late. Erzsébet had crossed the room, and after apparently punching Arthur in the arm, she shoved him away from Gilbert. Arthur tried to push her back, but Erzsébet was faster, moving out of the way and causing Arthur to overshoot and hit the ground. Arthur picked himself back up and attempted another attack on Erzsébet, only managing a motion that sent him toppling backwards onto his bed, clutching at his arm. It was now that Gilbert noticed the large hypodermic needle in Erzsébet's hand.

'Is that—?' he began.

'A syringe filled with elephant tranquilers?' Erzsébet finished for him coldly. 'Yes. Now shut up before I stab you with it as well. You didn't want to be bait, huh?' she ranted on. 'Did you really think you could trap him by yourself without any help from me?'

'It wasn't my idea to stay in here!' Gilbert protested. He quailed as he noticed Arthur glaring at him before his eyes closed. The anger he saw in them sent a shiver down his spine.

Erzsébet looked doubtfully at him as he pulled himself up slowly from the chair, gingerly stretching his legs in an attempt to stop the pins and needles.

'Whatever,' she said. 'It doesn't matter now that we've caught our vampire.'

She shut the door and shrugged off the backpack she was wearing ,pulling what appeared to be thirty metres of rope as well as a chain of garlic from it, clearly she'd come prepared. Erzsébet then lifted the unconscious Arthur from his bed and dumped him unceremoniously into the chair Gilbert had just vacated.

'Well?' she demanded as she began uncoiling the rope. 'Don't just stand there gawking at me; help me tie him up.'

Gilbert sprang into action, not wanting to risk Erzsébet making good on her threat to use the elephant tranquillisers on him as well.

'Jeez,' he remarked as he picked up the rope. 'This is heavy.'

'Industrial grade steel strengthened rope,' Erzsébet shrugged before continuing to deftly tie a knot with her section. 'I didn't want to take any chances.'

Altogether it took ten minutes to secure Arthur to the chair and for Erzsébet to check all of the knots. She then threw the loop of garlic heads over him for good measure.

'How long will it take for him to wake up?' Gilbert asked as Erzsébet admired her handiwork.

'Two hours, give or take,' she replied after a moment of thought. 'It's likely his system will get rid of it faster than a normal human's.' Gilbert didn't ask her how long it would take for a normal human to wake up, figuring he didn't want to know. 'If he doesn't want to answers our questions, I can always cart him down to the Bio lab and perform some involuntary experiments on him until he does.' Erzsébet added musingly.

'I'm sure it won't have to come to that!' Gilbert said hurriedly; the expression on Erzsébet's face at that moment was downright terrifying.

'Come to what?' Roderich asked as he walked into the room. 'Erzsi, we talked about this.' He said when he saw Arthur tied to the chair.

'Roderich darling, you know I wouldn't do anything that wasn't for the best,' Erzsébet replied coaxingly, a far cry from her demeanour just a minute ago.

Roderich didn't look convinced, and had just opened his mouth to argue with his girlfriend when the door opened again. A winded Summer Society member stood in the doorway, pausing to catch her breath.

'What is it, Angelique? Erzsébet asked, with some concern.

'We lost them, Erzsi,' the dark skinned girl gasped. 'We lost the airheads. Lily and Kiku are gone!' The red ribbon around her ponytail had come loose and she tugged it out, twisting it around her fingers anxiously.

'How did it happen?' Erzsébet questioned with patience that surprised Gilbert.

'I don't know,' Angelique wrung her hands. 'We noticed them walking off deeper into the woods and tried to follow them, but they just disappeared! Someone must have been calling to them somehow and snatched them before we got there.'

Erzsébet nodded, accepting the story.

'Call the rest of our Sisters,' she commanded. 'We're searching their rooms for clues.

'You,' she pointed at Gilbert. 'Are staying here and watching _him_.' She spat the last word out acerbically with a sharp gesture towards Arthur. 'Contact me as soon as he wakes up, I want to know how he managed this.

'And Roderich dear,' her voice mellowed out. 'You can come with me or stay with them, whichever you choose. Just don't try to stop me.' With that she swept out of the door, Angelique in tow.

Roderich looked over at Gilbert - who threw his hands up in a motion of defeat - then turned away to chase after Erzsébet.

'I guess it's just me then,' Gilbert muttered to himself, then took the opportunity to make a quick video update on what had happened.

Just over an hour later Erzsébet and Roderich were back in his room, filling Gilbert in on what they'd found. Well at least Erzsébet was – Roderich just sat beside her, looking as disapproving as usual.

'We found the same cards in their rooms as you did after Mattie disappeared,' Erzsébet confirmed grimly. 'And some odd stains on their pillowcases that I'm taking to the lab to analyse. Nothing else though. I just can't believe they were taken from under our watch.' She sighed and Roderich gently rubbed her shoulder. 'But I'm not giving up hope just yet; we'll just have to see what Arthur has to say for himself when he wakes up.'

'About that,' Roderich finally spoke up. 'Surely you can't just keep him tied up here. It's not _legal_. And even at this university, people are bound to notice sooner or later.'

'Honey, right now he's now only lead on what happened to Natalya and the others, and I sure as hell am not just letting him walk free. But I could always hide him in the Summer Society storage basements or take him to the Bio labs and claim he's a volunteer for an experiment.' Erzsébet offered.

Gilbert remembered the expression she'd had earlier.

'No!' he said a little too quickly; causing Erzsébet to frown at him. 'Uh… Erzsébet is right.' He amended rapidly. 'On the "we need him for information" part, I mean. And the best way to do that is if we keep him in here. Worst comes to worst you just blame me and I get expelled – which, in the light of me almost becoming a _vampire victim_ tonight, doesn't actually sound so dire.'

'It'll be dire when they start your tribunal,' Roderich pointed out.

Gilbert shuddered, he'd skimmed over that part of the Student Handbook and really didn't want to think about it.

'Let's not talk about that part,' he muttered.

From the chair that had been rolled into a corner, Arthur began to stir. It was about the two hour mark from when the tranquilisers had kicked in, just as Erzsébet had predicted. The trio looked at each other, then before anyone could say anything, Erzsébet had gotten up from where she was sitting on the desk and pulled a roughly hewn stake from her backpack.

'Alright,' she said, striding towards the corner Arthur was in and drumming the stake dangerously with her fingers. 'How did you manage to make Lili and Kiku disappear when we had you in here?'

Arthur blinked groggily at her for a few moments, then his eyes filled with venom.

'Because I didn't do it, you dimwits,' he growled.

'Hey! These "dimwits" managed to catch you! Right Erzsébet?' Gilbert called out, the fear he'd felt only a few hours ago all but forgotten.

Erzsébet ignored him.

'And you expect us to believe that? You're a vampire, and we know it.'

Arthur exhaled deeply with annoyance, then changed tact.

'If I were really a vampire, would I just be here all tied up and proclaiming my innocence?'

'Well yeah, that's exactly what a vampire would do,' Gilbert retorted, ignoring the glare Erzsébet shot at him. 'That, and the fact that being dosed on elephant tranquiliser will keep you from going anywhere for a good few hours. Besides, we have like a week's worth of video documentation proving you're all sorts of supernatural… You really shouldn't have just laughed off my video making.'

Arthur glared at him but knew defeat when he faced it.

'Fine,' he hissed. 'So I'm a vampire. But how could I have possibly have done what you're accusing me of doing if I was here with you, before getting _drugged_?'

'Uh, an accomplice maybe?' Gilbert responded, despite the exasperated look Erzsébet gave him.

'Do I strike you as somebody who plays well with others?' Arthur demanded.

'He's got a point there,' Roderich conceded, looking from person to person in the room.

Erzsébet spoke again while Gilbert was still trying to think of a retort.

'If you're not the one taking students, why were you following them around at parties?' she pressed.

'I happen to be quite popular,' Arthur replied bitingly. 'Unlike some people, clearly. I happen to get a lot of invitations to parties.'

'But you admitted to being a vampire!' Gilbert exclaimed, once again ignoring Erzsébet's frustration at his interruptions. This was as much of his investigation as it was hers.

'But not a kidnapper!' Arthur shot back.

Erzsébet made to argue, but Roderich cleared his throat. Everyone in the room stopped to stare at him.

'You really should keep it down,' he suggested. 'We don't want to draw attention here. Or better yet we should just let him go.'

'We can't let him go!' Erzsébet hissed quietly at Roderich. 'We know he's a vampire, he even just admitted to it.' She used the exact same argument as Gilbert had used moments ago, silencing him with a sharp look when he started to complain.

'And that is quite simply insane,' Roderich sighed, pulled off his glasses and began to polish them. 'Really we should be taking him to Health Services or…or… the Counsellors. Really, what else can you do? Watch him every second? Starve him until he talks –?'

He broke off as he noticed Erzsébet's expression change. Erzsébet glanced at Gilbert, daring him to protest.

'That, Roderich my dear,' she said charmingly once she'd ascertained that there'd be no object. 'Sounds like a perfect plan.'

* * *

 **Erzsébet is terrifying enough as a human in the AU, aren't we all glad she isn't a vampire?**

 **In case it wasn't clear - Angelique is Seychelles, she'll likely become a recurring character from this point onwards.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Here's the second part of the chapter that got too long. Enjoy the tragic backstories of our vampire and aspiring journalist.**

* * *

 _The light levels in the room indicates it is late afternoon as Gilbert appears on camera, sitting on a fold out chair he_ ' _s borrowed from a storage closet. He is still noticeably tired looking, but otherwise in a well kempt state. Just visible within the frame behind Gilbert is Arthur; the self confessed vampire is apparently unconscious and still tied to the desk chair. "Hello to everyone who has taken an interest to this investigation," Gilbert says. "It_ ' _s been a week since Erzsébet somehow decided to take Roderich_ ' _s hyperbole as a legitimate suggestion, and throughout that entire time Arthur hasn_ ' _t said a single word." His tone is detectably more aggravated than usual. "Oh and it gets better," Gilbert continued his diatribe. "Also in that time; I_ ' _ve barely seen our floor don or his_ ' _campus heroine_ ' _girlfriend, because apparently Roderich is_ 'very understandably stressed about this whole situation' _and they_ ' _ve been going on little picnics and long walks and generally not being of any help at all. Then there are the nightmares; which haven_ ' _t stopped – and in fact they_ ' _re getting even weirder – even though we_ ' _ve supposedly caught the bad guy!_ ' _Gilbert stops to take a calming breath, deciding he shouldn_ ' _t take out his need to vent on his viewers any further. "So basically," he continues once he is collected. "Right now we have no further information and a stubborn vampire hostage who won_ ' _t speak, which is all he has to do if he wants blood!" Gilbert says the last part a little louder to push his point in case Arthur was listening. "In the meantime, there_ ' _s nothing else we can do. So I_ ' _ll give you guys an update once he finally talks."_

* * *

As soon as he'd posted the video Gilbert felt that something was wrong. Getting up from the chair to check on Arthur, he saw that the vampire had started to convulse, skin ashen. Immediately, Gilbert began to panic.

'No, no, no, no!' he cried, racing to the refrigerator to search for the blood filled soy milk container. 'You are not dying on me!' He unscrewed the cap on the carton and ran to over to Arthur, forcing the half empty container to his lips and tilting it downwards. 'Please don't die on me! Oh why didn't you just _talk_?'

Gradually the convulsions stopped and Arthur began to cough, Gilbert released a breath he hadn't realised he was holding and pulled the milk carton away.

'Oh thank god,' he breathed. 'You want some more?' he asked after a moment. Erzsébet wouldn't be happy about this, but Gilbert didn't care; she hadn't come into the room for days and he was tired of just making Arthur suffer.

Arthur glared at him weakly then nodded almost imperceptibly. Gilbert held out the container again and let him drink from it.

'You're not going to let me out of here anytime soon, are you?' Arthur stated bleakly when the carton was emptied, voice hoarse from disuse.

'When did you figure that out?' Gilbert muttered sarcastically, then grimaced. 'Look, we need information, and you're not in a very good position to refuse it. I mean, before Erzsébet came into the room, you were looking at me like you were _hungry_.'

'I wasn't going to bite you, if that's what you thought,' Arthur spoke listlessly, looking away from him.

'Then –' Gilbert broke off as a realisation that made him feel terrible hit him. 'All the gifts and you suddenly being nice… _That was you hitting on me?_ '

'Oh just stake me already! That would be less painful and humiliating!' Arthur snapped before breaking into another fit of coughing.

'I'm guessing that's a "yes" then,' Gilbert tried for uneasy humour, but it did nothing to ease the guilt he felt.

'And the whole time you were just setting yourself up to play the part of the virgin sacrifice,' Arthur said as soon as the coughing stopped. 'And now I'm stuck tied to a chair based on the accusation of something I didn't even have the pleasure of doing.'

'Then what were you doing at the parties? And how did you know all of the missing students?' Gilbert decided to ignore the first part. 'You can't expect us to let you out of the chair if you don't tell us your side of the story.'

'My side of the story?' Arthur laughed bitterly. 'Now that's something long and dark.'

'Well I've got time,' Gilbert tried and failed not to look at all the readings he'd been procrastinating, then retrieved the fold out chair anyway and set it up next to the chair Arthur was tied to.

'I guess you'll just keep pestering me to tell you until I do,' Arthur spoke in defeat. 'Very well, strap yourself in, Snowflake.

'I was born in 1680 as the youngest son of a minor baron in London,' he began before Gilbert could object to his new nickname. 'I lived a sheltered life among the high society, everything I could have ever wanted was at my fingertips, but there were some things that were always just a too far out of my reach. When I was eighteen, I attended a ball – one of the many of the day – where I was murdered.'

'What!' Gilbert wasn't sure he'd heard properly, given the flat tone of Arthur's narration.

'I said I was murdered, weren't you listening?' Arthur responded impatiently.

'Right of course,' Gilbert muttered, signalling for him to carry on.

' _Pater_ saved me,' Arthur continued. ' _Father_ ,' he translated when he realised Gilbert didn't understand. 'Not my birth father –no, his only interest in my life was to make sure I found a suitable bride with a considerable dowry because he'd already carved up his estate for each of my four older brothers to inherit, I'm sure he was quite relieved when I disappeared actually – this was the father I knew after death. All I knew about him was that he was very old, wise, and the only person who cared enough to rescue me from the grasps of death.

'In death, I had a whole new world in my hands, the ability to do exactly as I wished as I'd never had in life. I visited more balls without the need to fear what might be lurking just off of the glittering dance floors, I saw the stars in faraway places that few had ever been to before. Every night was a grand moment of opportunity.

'Every twenty years we'd come here, to this very place, and a ritual would be performed. Silas was a lot smaller then, and much of what took place occurred just outside of the original campus. _Pater_ would arrange for me to befriend someone, he would pretend to have urgent business and leave me in the care of somebody with a child my age. A young woman, a young man, it didn't matter, I charmed them all the same. We'd immediately become inseparable, but soon they'd fall ill.' He paused to regard Gilbert. 'I think you'll recognise these symptoms: strange behaviour, weakness of the mind? Well, soon enough _Pater_ would retrieve me and it would be another twenty years before I was sent to make another friend.'

'This really isn't helping your case of innocence,' Gilbert pointed out, unnerved by the sudden eye contact.

Arthur shook his head adamantly.

'I never abducted anyone, I was only a lure. And then I met Elle.

'The year was 1785, and there was a great sense of change in the world. Britain had just lost one of its most important colonies after a war lasting eight years, and people were beginning to question the way things always were. I was back here, ready to play along with what _Pater_ had planned. The game was the same, I was left in the care of a man with a daughter my age, and soon enough we were inseparable.' Arthur stared off into the distance. 'But this time it wasn't a lie. Elizabeth was beautiful; flaming red hair, with sharp wit and spirit, I couldn't bear to give her up to _Pater_ when the time came. So I planned for the both of us to escape, I told Elle we'd elope together, but _Pater_ found out.

'I'd gone to great lengths to never let Elle know what I was, and _Pater_ told her the night we were supposed to escape, painting me in the worst light possible.' His voice became slow and pained. 'Elle believed I was a monster, and led _Pater_ straight to me. I was punished for my insubordination; orced to watched Elle be taken away to some awful fate, then sent away from my homeland – to the fields of France – and sealed in a coffin of blood so that I couldn't die, but would waste away for eternity in the knowledge I'd angered _Pater_.

'For over a century I remained trapped under the earth. I missed the Enlightenment and the age of revolutions. Then the artillery fire of the First World War freed me from my tomb, and I walked out of the remnants of no man's land into a world that had changed so much. I wandered the continent for some time, never daring to return home; it was too dangerous, and the memories would be more painful there.' Arthur sniffed, and Gilbert sat transfixed, unsure whether to look away or to offer his sympathy. ' _Pater_ found me anyway - during the Second World War. He said he didn't have the heart to reinter me, but I knew he was hoping the horrors of the war I'd seen would disillusion me from humanity and return me to his side. Though nothing could make me forgot what he'd done to Elle, so I pretended to go along.'

'You went straight back to helping abduct people?' Gilbert questioned indignantly.

'No,' Arthur said tiredly. 'You're still not listening to me – I said I pretended.

'Silas had gotten a lot bigger while I was out of the picture, but the game remained the same even if some rules had changed. I ruined opportunities where I could, sending students back to their parents, or to other universities where they could be safe. I had to be satisfied with these small acts of revenge as I bided my time trying to find out what _Pater_ was doing, what I'd betrayed Elle to before she betrayed me.'

'So you're saying that you've been helping people to escape?' Gilbert was slightly baffled with this rearrangement what he had thought were the facts.

'When I could,'

'Did you help Mattie then?'

More than ever, Gilbert wanted to know what had happened to his first friend at Silas, and what he could do to help him.

'I tried,'

Gilbert took a moment to assess that Arthur was telling the truth.

'So someone Mattie knew and trusted was actually a vampire pretending to be his friend? A vampire who then abducted him?' He asked.

'In short - yes,' Arthur's tone was as flat as ever.

'So if we just stop your, uh, dad, then everything then would end and we'd be able to get everyone back, right?' Gilbert suggested optimistically.

'You can't stop him,' Arthur laughed cynically. 'Do you think no one has ever tried?'

'We caught you,' Gilbert argued.

'With sheer dumb luck,' Arthur shook his head, frustrated that his point wasn't getting across. 'Besides, I'm nothing compared to _Pater_ , and you're already terrified of him.'

'How can I be terrified of someone I've never met?' Gilbert was confused.

'Oh you've met him alright, he's the Dean,'

Arthur looked almost smug as Gilbert was finally at a loss for words.

'Oh,'

'"Oh" is right,' Arthur's tone was very grimly satisfied for someone who was still tied to a chair. 'So you might as well give up now and run away while you still can, now that you know exactly what you're facing. Oh and let me out of here while you're at it.'

'No,' Gilbert spoke defiantly, watching Arthur be taken aback. 'There has to be a way. There's no way in hell that I'm giving up on anyone - not Mattie, not Kiku and Lili, not even Natalya.' He paused in his tirade to offer an apologetic look. 'Also I can't just let you out of there before conferring with Erzsébet, else forget confronting the Dean, _she_ ' _ll_ kill me first.'

'After everything I told you, you still want to play the hero,' Arthur shook his head in disbelief. 'But what else did I expect from you, really? Well, don't say I didn't warn you.'

They sat in silence for a while, Gilbert had sent a message to Erzsébet and was waiting for her to return. Finally he made up his mind to speak.

'Hey,' he began uncertainly. 'You told me your story, and well, my life has been nowhere near as bad as yours, but it's only fair that I tell you mine.'

Arthur made no indication that he didn't want to hear it, and Gilbert took it as a sign for him to carry on.

'I wasn't meant to be an only child,' he confessed, it was the first time he'd told anyone this, and so far it was just as hard as he'd expected it to be. 'Or even the oldest. I was supposed to have an older brother. I've been told he was my dad's pride and joy when he was born. He was by all descriptions a healthy child with a mop of blond hair and bright blue eyes. Dad named him after both of his grandfathers - Alexander Ludwig. But Alexander only appeared healthy, my mother had had complications during the pregnancy and he was born sickly. My parents were always taking him in and out of hospital, and he died before his second birthday. My dad was heartbroken, and my mother even more so, she wanted another child so badly and eventually my dad agreed even though doctors had warned them of the risks.' By this point Gilbert didn't care if Arthur was even listening. 'She got pregnant with me, and well, the complications from carrying Alexander had damaged her health, and she died during childbirth. All of my relatives who were in the room that day said my dad was never the same afterwards. That he'd given up all hope, and expected me to die as well. But I was the opposite of Alexander, I looked sickly but was completely healthy. And so my newly widowed dad was left with a second son who looked nothing like the first.

'Ever since I can remember, he's always been strict and overbearing. Always wanting my grades to be perfect and being disappointed when they weren't. I was hardly allowed to leave the house, and when I was, he always checked who I was going with and I had strict orders to come back before a certain time.

'I'm sure he loves me though, Gilbert's voice broke, it hurt to finally voice his insecurities, but still he let them out. 'He just doesn't want to lose another person. But I think he still compares me to what he expected Alexander to be though, and that every time he sees me he's reminded of the loss of his perfect son and wife.'

He finished flatly, staring at his hands as moisture blurred his vision in the silence that followed.

'But yeah,' he said when he trusted himself to speak again. 'As I said, it's nothing compared to what you've been through.'

'I wouldn't say that,' Arthur said so quietly that Gilbert wasn't sure if he'd imagined it. 'That wouldn't be an easy life to lead as a normal human. There's no shame in crying.' He added sagely when Gilbert looked over at him in surprise, furiously attempting to blink back tears. 'It's always hardest to tell the first time.'

'How did you know I'd never told anyone before?' Gilbert asked, astounded.

Arthur tried to shrug despite his bindings.

'Lucky guess,' he replied. 'I didn't imagine it wouldn't be something you told to everyone you met.'

'What about you?' Gilbert asked as he remembered the way Arthur had spoken. 'You said that " _it's always hardest the first time_ " like you've done it many times, but I can't imagine you would tell many people your story either.'

'I didn't tell it to other people,' Arthur admitted, shutting his eyes. 'Just to myself. I had to do something to keep sane all those long decades under the earth – remind myself who I was – even if it meant torturing myself.'

'Oh,' Gilbert said once again as another pinprick of guilt drove its way into his heart.

The door opened then, and they were subjected to the sight and sound of Erzsébet kissing Roderich goodbye before she strode into the room.

'You said he talked?' she asked interrogatorily of Gilbert, business as usual as soon as Roderich had left them alone.

'He did,' Gilbert replied. He looked over at Arthur, who was watching him carefully with a cautiously neutral expression.

'Well?' Erzsébet questioned, patience waning.

Gilbert sighed and relayed everything he'd heard, glancing at Arthur occasionally to gauge his reaction and taking care to not mention too many details about Elle. He also left out the part where he'd shared his own story with Arthur. Roderich had come back into the room as Gilbert finished up his summary, taking a seat beside Erzsébet on Gilbert's bed.

'So can we let him out of the chair now?' Gilbert asked after he'd given the couple time to take in what they'd heard. He looked at Roderich in particular, knowing Erzsébet would be harder to budge.

'Absolutely not,' Erzsébet declared after scrutinising Gilbert. 'Why would you even ask that question when you're the one who heard his confession about kidnapping people for centuries firsthand?'

'Because if we're going against the Dean, we probably need as much help as we can get,' Gilbert excused, keeping the thoughts that perhaps they'd gone a little overboard in the last week private; he didn't like the look Erzsébet was giving him.

'I wouldn't take anything he says without a grain of salt,' Erzsébet replied coldly. 'And that isn't really much help.'

'What about you, Roderich?' Gilbert asked with some desperation. After all, he had all but promised Arthur he'd convince the others to release him. 'You didn't want to do this in the first place.'

Roderich shook his head.

'If we're to believe that he said,' he began. 'We've just kidnapped the Dean's son, and we really can't just let him go after that.'

'You seem quite adamant to let him go,' Erzsébet said accusingly, narrowing her eyes at Gilbert.

'I just want my chair back!' Gilbert defended, not breaking eye contact with Erzsébet .

'You can deal with it,' she replied smarmily, accepting that as a valid explanation and setting her suspicions at ease .

'It's getting late,' Roderich said as he stood up. 'I think I'll take my leave. Erzsébet?'

'Oh I'm coming with you.' Erzsébet stood as well. 'We can discuss how to deal with the Dean together tomorrow morning.' She told Gilbert

'Can I get my chair back then?' Gilbert called as they left.

'Don't hold your breath,' Erzsébet said dismissively as she shut the door.

* * *

 ** _Pater_ means father in Latin, and from my understanding (which is actually in an Australian period detective novel context) was the form of address to their fathers by children of wealthy upper class Anglo families. The Dean's identity will definitely be revealed in the next chapter, so this is your last chance to take a pot shot at which Hetalia character he is. I daresay all the clues are laid out by now.**

 **Elle, of course, is an incarnation of Elizabeth I - the queen who proclaimed herself married to England (sort of like Lisa and Joan of Arc in the Hetalia canon)**

 **Prussia's backstory alludes to the death of HRE, who I've portmanteau'd with Germany in this fic.**


	6. Chapter 6

**Here's another update, if anyone's actually reading.**

* * *

 _Gilbert appears to be rather annoyed as the webcam switches on. It is the second time in the day he is filming a video. "Are you filming again? Those two just left." Arthur asks with some amusement from behind Gilbert, still tied to the chair. "Of course," Gilbert turns around. "I said that I would make an update when you talked, and I don't go back on my word if I can avoid it." There is a pause. "I was lying about the chair, by the way." Arthur catches onto his meaning quickly. "Oh don't worry about me, I'm fine here while you idiotically take on_ Pater _," he says with overly dramatic flippancy. "Besides, you never actually promised to let me out of this chair." He adds in his normal tone. "I guess," Gilbert replies uncertainly, but he turns back around. "Hello viewers," he begins. "As you may have figured out from the fact I'm updating, our resident vampire has given us some answers." "_ Captive _vampire, did you mean?" Arthur butts in from behind him. Gilbert turns briefly. "You said it, not me." He says before facing the camera again. "We're planning what to do next tomorrow, but first I should probably fill you all in on the details." Gilbert pauses to glance at Arthur and he notices. "Sure, go ahead," he says in the same overly flippant tone as before. "Tell my terrible tale to the entire world, I don't mind at all." Gilbert bites his lip. "Look, I have to give them some context," He says softly. Arthur doesn't reply. Gilbert sighs and turns back to facing the webcam, giving his audience the same rundown he gave Erzsébet earlier. "And so, now we know we're facing the_ Dean of Students _," he concludes. "If you're wondering what we're planning now; well we have no idea." Arthur snorts at this and Gilbert makes a face. "Your constant negativity about this isn't helpful, you know!" He calls behind him. "And I've told you many times already, that_ you don't have a chance. _" Arthur responds "And I told_ you _just as many times, that I'm not going to give up! You know what? Never mind!" Gilbert whirls back around to face the camera. "This is what I have to deal with." He mutters angrily, before switching into a more pleasant tone. "Well, that's all I've got for now, if any of can think of anything that might help us, please leave me a comment. Apart from that, until next time!"_

* * *

'Do you really think anyone out there who could help you?' Arthur asked as soon as Gilbert had finished recording.

There was no real mockery in his voice; more so curiosity, but Gilbert had had so many pointless arguments that day that he didn't care.

'I don't know.' He snapped with tired annoyance. 'But I'm starting to miss when you _didn't_ talk.'

'Very well then,' Arthur replied, and then the room was silent.

'I didn't mean that,' Gilbert whispered to himself as he resigned to uploading the video, wishing he could take back what he said.

Pride prevented him from actually apologising but guilt ate away at him, causing him to forget to edit out the start of the video as he'd intended before he uploaded it.

'Well I'm going to sleep now,' he announced loudly when he was done.

Silence answered him, and with a regret filled sigh, Gilbert trudged into the bathroom to brush his teeth and change into pyjamas.

Gilbert awoke hours later to the sound of voices. At first he thought he was still dreaming. Hadn't he been running from a group of ghostly people in his latest nightmare? Then what he heard made his blood run cold.

' _Pater_ says it's time for you to stop messing around, Arthur,' a female voice, high and cold spoke, followed by the sound of moving rope. For a terrifying moment Gilbert thought it might be Erzsébet, before realising it sounded nothing like her. 'We're going to grab your pesky little roommate, then deal with his annoying friends.'

Gilbert's heart raced; he was doomed, and so were Erzsébet and Roderich. There was no way Arthur wouldn't just hand them all over. Not after being held hostage for a week, and especially not after Gilbert had just pissed him off. Stupidly, Gilbert reached over and turned on his lamp, he didn't know why he did it, but in his panic it was the first thing that had occurred to him.

Arthur was now freed from the chair, the ropes that had tied him down being held by a second figure in the room – the owner of the voice. They both turned as the light filled the room and Gilbert could see the intruder clearly. She was petite, with blonde hair a few shades lighter than Arthur's framing a heart shaped face in angelic curls. Standing next to Arthur, they could have been siblings. The porcelain doll-like innocence her smooth pale skin, red painted lips and wide light green eyes gave her only made her words and the cool malicious intent in her gaze more unsettling. As she stared through him, Gilbert knew she could only be one of the other vampires Arthur had mentioned.

'Oh he's awake,' she said with barely veiled menace, red lips curling into a cruel smile that reminded Gilbert of a time he'd seen a cat notice a wounded baby bird. 'Good, we'll get to do this the fun way.'

Gilbert ignored the shiver that ran down his spine.

'I see you're out of the chair,' he said politely to Arthur, hoping to confuse the pair of vampires. 'I hope you don't mind but there's somewhere else I need to be right now.' With that he bolted towards the door.

The female vampire caught him before he even got near it, twisting his arm behind his back and causing Gilbert to hiss in pain.

'That's enough, Laura,' Arthur's voice came from the other side of the room.

Gilbert turned to face him, behind him, the female vampire – Laura – tutted.

'I always knew you were soft, Arthur,' she said disdainfully. 'I don't understand why you were ever _Pater's_ favourite. Even after your disgrace he still held you in favour. It just makes no sense to me.' Gilbert saw Arthur's fists clench as Laura continued with a smile that bared all of her teeth. 'Why, I think I might just have a snack right now.'

It took Gilbert a moment to realise she meant him. He tried to struggle but Laura only laughed and pinned his other arm behind his back with ease.

'We're not supposed to kill the targets,' Arthur spoke with a dangerous quietness, staring Laura down.

Laura laughed again, her laughter cold and taunting.

'I never said I was going to _kill_ him, but now I think I will. Just to mess with you.'

Feeling her lean closer to him, Gilbert gulped, clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. It seemed his luck had finally run out. Then suddenly he was released. Laura had staggered backwards as Arthur's fist connected with her face. Finding himself free, Gilbert darted away from Laura as clasped at her left cheek in shock. Slowly, Laura pulled her hand away from her face and strode towards the door.

'You're going to regret that, _brother dear_ ,' she hissed venomously as she opened it. 'Just wait until I tell _Pater_ this, then _I'll_ finally be his favourite child.' Then she whirled through the door and disappeared in a blur of motion.

Gilbert was left facing Arthur in the dimly lit room, still feeling somewhat stunned from the close encounter he'd just had.

'Uh, thanks for saving me just then, I'm—'

Gilbert's attempt to apologise what he'd said earlier that night was cut short as Arthur stepped towards him, expression unreadable. He cupped his hands around Gilbert's face, bringing them as close as they had been on that fateful night of the party. Then he shoved him backwards onto his bed. Gilbert gasped, winded by the fall. Then he felt pain. Arthur had bitten him. Before he even had a chance to struggle or protest, Arthur released him. Gilbert sat up, clutching at his neck, just in time to see Arthur vanish out of the door, running with the same superhuman speed in the direction Laura had gone.

'Oh my god,' Gilbert breathed in quick shallow breaths as he felt the wetness of blood beneath the hand at his neck. He slumped backwards towards the wall. 'He bit me.'

Gilbert was still hyperventilating by the time Erzsébet and Roderich entered the room, it could have been minutes or hours later, he couldn't tell.

'Looks like you were right about hearing something,'

He heard Erzsébet speaking to Roderich as if from very far away or underwater.

'Did you think I'd make something like that up? Roderich rebuked.

'Hey!'

Gilbert barely registered that that was addressed to him before stinging pain erupted across his face. He gasped sharply.

'Did you just slap me?' Gilbert asked Erzsébet as she withdrew her hand.

'He was in shock, it was the most effective way to snap him out of it,' Erzsébet defended to Roderich as he frowned at her.

'Oh, are you just going to ignore _me_ then?' Gilbert asked as he rubbed at his cheek.

Erzsébet rounded on him with fearsome fury, an impressive feat for someone wearing cat covered pyjamas.

'I _told you_ not to let him go,' she gestured at the now empty chair that Arthur had been held hostage in over the last week. 'But what did you do? Exactly that.' Her eyes caught on Gilbert's neck. 'And you got yourself bitten too. What did I tell you?'

'What makes you think I let him go?' Gilbert had recovered enough to recall his earlier annoyance with Erzsébet, and now she was blaming him for yet another thing that wasn't his fault.

'The fact you kept arguing for that last night!' Erzsébet retorted. 'I told you not to trust anything he said. But you went and bought every word of the sob story he fed you, didn't you? So you let him out of that chair and got bitten for your troubles.'

'I didn't let him go,' Gilbert maintained. 'Will you just listen for once?'

This only served to further aggravate Erzsébet.

'Save it for your 'fans' out there,' she threw Gilbert's laptop a scathing glance. 'There's no one else you can blame for this. I don't know what else I expected from you; I knew you were an attention seeker from the start.'

' _What_ —?'

'Oh don't you play innocent with me now!' Erzsébet growled, she stepped closer towards Gilbert, towering over his sitting position. He could see the tangles in her hair and the dark circles underneath her eyes. 'You and your videos and—'

'If you don't think I started this because of _my friend_ , just like you did for yours. Then you're wrong.' Gilbert shot back at her, standing up from his bed to face her stubbornly.

Erzsébet was about to respond when she noticed Gilbert freeze. Turning, she followed his line of sight towards the fridge in the room and saw Arthur standing beside it, watching them with amusement, in the process of unwrapping a muesli bar.

' _You_ ,' she narrowed her eyes at him, reached for a stake she didn't have and faltered. Roderich backed into a corner of the room, looking sickly in his paisley pyjamas. 'Come back to finish the job?' Erzsébet continued, maintaining the bravado despite being at a complete loss for weapons.

Arthur scowled, displeased at having been seen, and set down the muesli bar.

'Don't get your panties in a twist,' he told her curtly, seeming satisfied as she spluttered, her hands curling into fists, but otherwise unable to act against him. 'I _had_ to bite him for energy or else _another_ vampire would have killed him.' He explained as if he was speaking to particularly stupid children. 'Because, some _idiots_ here decided to starve me for a week.'

He gave them all a hard stare. Gilbert flinched and looked away. Roderich gulped. But Erzsébet held her ground.

'Because you wouldn't give us information,' she responded just as coldly.

Sensing an argument he really didn't want to hear about to break out, Gilbert spoke quickly.

'So did you catch up to her?' He asked, addressing Arthur.

Arthur considered him for a moment.

'I did,' he finally replied in a somewhat regretful tone. 'I dealt with her before she could spill everything to Pater.'

'You mean…' Gilbert's eyes widened at the response.

Erzsébet caught onto his meaning immediately.

'You _killed_ somebody?' she asked, thunderstruck. Behind her, Roderich shrank further into the wall.

' _Oh I'm sorry_ ,' Arthur began with sarcasm. 'I supposed I should have left Snowflake here to die.' He jerked a thumb sharply towards Gilbert. 'And then let her come after the rest of you. Is that what you'd rather? If all of you were dead?'

A brief silence followed, with even Erzsébet unable to find a response to that.

'I didn't think so,' Arthur said with audible smugness.

'Hey, thanks for saving me,' Gilbert broke the stunned silence that still reigned over his half of the room.

Arthur's expression flickered then became more guarded.

'I was just saving myself,' he muttered, before snatching the muesli bar back up and striding from the room.

'Well, there's no need for you two to be in here anymore,' Gilbert said as he watched the door slam, sounding more upset than he wanted to.

Roderich exited the room gladly and hurriedly, but Erzsébet lingered.

'If I didn't know better, I'd say you have a crush on the vampire,' she accused, eyeing Gilbert carefully.

' _What_? I don't have a crush on Arthur!' Gilbert was taken aback. 'I just feel sorry for him, that's all! I mean, what with the way he's been treated by the Dean…'

Erzsébet raised an eyebrow at him, making a sceptical sound of acceptance.

'If you say so,' she told him, before she turned towards the door where Roderich was waiting for her. 'Coming, Roderich dear.'

Gilbert waited until their footsteps had faded before returning to his bed, trying to stop replaying that last exchange of words with Erzsébet from his mind.

Eventually he must have fallen asleep, for he woke again around dawn to find Arthur sitting at the windowsill, watching something outside was an amused grin.

'What's happening?' Gilbert called out blearily. He felt for the bite marks on his neck – they'd scabbed over, but he'd need to wear a scarf if his usual hoodie didn't cover them.

Arthur surveyed him coolly.

'Looks like the Alchemy Club's fungi experiment has taken root…' he replied. 'Literally.'

Gilbert dragged himself out of bed and over to the window, pretending not to notice Arthur inch slightly away from him as he approached.

'Am I really awake because I think I'm seeing giant mushrooms down there,' he said as he took in the baffling view.

'You're seeing them,' Arthur confirmed.

Gilbert continued peering out of the window and saw spores erupting from the toadstools and causing anyone they landed on spasm and then, as if they were drawn by a magnet, walk jerkily towards the theatre building where there was already a large congregation of zombie-like students.

'What the hell is happening?' Gilbert breathed.

'I don't know, but it's pretty funny,' Arthur said flippantly beside him. 'What are you doing?' He asked when Gilbert moved away from the window to throw his hoodie on over his pyjamas and a scarf around the bottom half of his face for good measure.

'I'm going outside,' Gilbert replied, voice muffled by the scarf. 'I'm going to help those people.'

He finished pulling on his shoes and ran out of the door before Arthur could respond. Arthur blinked as he left.

'There's really no talking you out of these things, is there?' he muttered, shaking his head.

Minutes later and Gilbert was on the campus grounds, surrounded by six-foot-tall mushrooms that were billowing spores out towards him, and unsure what to do. In the distance he could see torches being lit within the crowd surrounding the theatre building.

'Need a hand?' a familiar voice called from behind Gilbert and he whirled around. Arthur stood behind him, frowning as he stepped sideways to avoid another gust of mind-altering spores. 'Because the greenhouses are that way, if you're looking for say, saws, machetes or fungicide.'

Gilbert almost grinned at him, but kept the current situation in mind.

'Right,' he said. 'That sounds like a great idea.'

They didn't speak for the duration of the run towards the greenhouses. Gilbert arrived out of breath and immediately made for the gardening tools. Deciding saws would be a waste of time on the soft-bodied mushrooms, Gilbert picked up an axe, nearly dropped it onto his foot, and swore.

'These things are heavier than they look,' he complained. 'They make chopping wood look so easy in movies.'

Arthur took the axe off him and handed him a wickedly sharp machete he'd taken from among many hanging from the wall. Gilbert recalled him mentioning machetes before.

'Why do we even have all of those?' he asked.

'There was a vine infestation back in '72,' Arthur replied with a shrug. 'The hippies in the Gardening Club back in the day took "flower power" a little too literally.' He explained when he saw Gilbert's quizzical expression, hefting the axe over his shoulder like it was weightless.

' _Show-off_ ,' Gilbert muttered.

Arthur smirked at him.

'Are you going to look at the fungicides, or are we ready to go?' he asked.

'I don't think bottles of fungicide are going to work that well on those giant mushrooms,' Gilbert replied after a moment of thought. 'Even if they're undiluted, there probably isn't enough.' Another thought occurred to him. 'Can't you set things on fire mentally? I mean, I saw you do it once.'

'No,' Arthur shook his head. 'That takes a lot of concentration and effort that I'm not willing waste on giant toadstools.'

'Fine,' Gilbert began to head back outside. 'We can do this the old fashioned way.'

An hour into hacking the overgrown fungi apart, and Gilbert was exhausted. Meanwhile Arthur hadn't even broken a sweat.

'That's ten down,' he called over, admiring his handiwork as yet another mushroom toppled onto the ground before him in small pieces. 'How many have you destroyed? Four?'

'When did we agree to make this into a competition?' Gilbert grumbled over the felled mushroom he was in the process of chopping into bits, pulling his scarf off to wipe sweat away from his eyes.

They'd been joined by Erzsébet and the Summer Society, who'd, procured large barrels of fungicide and were rolling them into the basements of all the nearby buildings. Erzsébet appeared to have a word with them, flanked by Angelique.

'The Alchemy Club has lost control of a large underground fungal network,' she explained in her best authoritative debriefing tone. 'The people who have breathed in the spores of those things are currently trying to burn down the theatre building and are attacking anyone who attempts to stop them.' Subconsciously she rubbed at her arm, where Gilbert could see a large bruise was beginning to form.

'Why the theatre building,' he pondered. 'That's the oldest building on campus and supposedly its subterranean amphitheatre is an almost exact replica of the Globe theatre in London.'

'Did you read that in the Handbook?' Erzsébet asked derisively. Gilbert had, but he didn't answer, and she continued. 'What I meant was – stay away from the theatre building; my people are handling it.' With that, she walked away with Angelique in tow.

Gilbert watched as Erzsébet stopped in her path towards the theatre building in order to quickly and brutally destroy a towering mushroom.

'And now I remember why I try not to disagree with her to her face,' he muttered.

Beside him Arthur snorted, then he noticed something coming towards them.

'Watch out!' he yelled, knocking Gilbert onto the ground to avoid a stream of spores.

Gilbert felt a blast of heat as the mushroom that had released the spores burst into flames.

'Thanks,' he gasped, out of breath.

'Eleven,' Arthur smiled aggravatingly from his position above Gilbert.

Gilbert groaned and pushed at him.

'Get off me so I can get _my_ count to five,'

It was evening by the time the last mushroom was vanquished. The scope of the infestation had been so large, that most of the student body that had not been infected by the spores had had to help out with the effort. Gilbert trudged back up to his dorm with Arthur and immediately flopped down onto his bed once they were in the room.

'Well there goes half my weekend,' he said amid a yawn, pulling a pillow over his face. 'Good thing I didn't have anything due.'

'Ah,' Gilbert heard Arthur say. 'I was about to say that you don't do anything on weekends anyway.'

Without bothering to sit up, Gilbert tossed the pillow he was holding limply in Arthur's general direction.

'Ha ha, really funny,' he muttered loudly.

'That didn't even land anywhere close to me,' Arthur spoke with evident amusement.

There was a creaking of the floorboards and Arthur must have picked up the pillow, for a moment later it was dropped back onto Gilbert. Gilbert grabbed the pillow and pulled it back around his head, yawning once more. The mattress shifted under additional weight as Arthur carefully sat down near Gilbert's feet.

'We need to talk,' was all he said.

Gilbert was instantly alert.

'About what?' he asked too quickly. He'd taken too many criticisms over the last few days and really didn't want to hear any more of them, but he was willing to apologise for anything if it meant making peace.

'That charm I gave you,' Arthur began. 'Where did you put it?'

Keeping back a sigh of relief, Gilbert threw off the pillow, stretched, and sheepishly made his to a corner of the room. There he retrieved the rabbit's foot from beneath a pile of unwashed laundry, free newspapers he'd never read, graded assignments and miscellaneous other items. He sat down beside Arthur and wordlessly handed the charm to him.

'Good, you still have it. I've told you this before but; you have to keep this on you for it to work.' Arthur said, giving the foot back to Gilbert.

Gilbert looked down at the small furry object for a moment, swallowed, then pocketed it.

'What does it actually do?' he asked curiously.

'Is a powerful luck charm, and it'll makes you feel... _off_ …to the vampires,' Arthur explained to him. 'It's like you're surrounded by a layer of static or leaking radiation. Like; if I touched you, I might feel unwell.'

'That's, uh, good then, uh, probably,' Gilbert couldn't out why, but he had misgivings about what he'd just said.

If Arthur had noticed, he didn't mention it.

'In any case,' he continued. 'It should persuade the vampires to move on.'

 _To another target_ , Gilbert thought with a shiver down his spine. Even if he was out of immediate danger now, he still had to help the others and prevent more students from being taken.

'About that,' he began cautiously. 'Any news on the Dean?'

Arthur shook his head.

'The fact we're both still alive means he probably hasn't found out I killed Laura yet, but it's only a matter of time,' he spoke with resignation.

'Why didn't you run?' Gilbert asked as a thought struck him. 'You could have left us here to face the music alone and just run. You were angry enough at us to do that.'

'I threw in my lot with you idiots when I killed Laura,' Arthur said with a long sigh. 'Like it or not, I'm relying on the three of you coming up with some sort of plan.' He offered Gilbert a weary smile. 'Besides, I wasn't _that_ angry at you.'

Those last words gave Gilbert a feeling of unexplainable relieved happiness, and he smiled back at Arthur.

'So you think we can come up with a plan?' he asked.

No,' admitted Arthur. 'But even if I had run, _Pater_ would have found me. He's done it before, he'll do it again.'

'Well we have you on our side now, right?' Gilbert reasoned. 'And you have centuries of intel on the Dean, surely that counts for something.'

'You just don't get it,' Arthur spoke listlessly. 'You've never seen for yourself what he's capable of firsthand. My father is an immensely powerful being with a personal cabal of the undead; you have no hopes against him.'

His expression was hopeless, and in that moment Gilbert came to the realisation that Arthur was just as – if not even more – afraid of the Dean than he was. He tried to think of something to say, but before he could, the sound of arguing drifted in from outside. Moments later Erzsébet came into the room, followed by Roderich.

'This is just ridiculous,' Roderich was saying. 'First the Cooking Club's crazy mushroom prank—,'

'For the last time, Roderich,' Erzsébet cut him off in an impatient tone that was normally reserved for Gilbert. 'That was not a prank, and people were actually in danger.'

'There probably a perfectly normal explanation—,'

'Nothing around here is _normal_ , Roderich!'

'Do you two have a reason to be here, or do you just want us to watch you argue?' Arthur asked with some irritation.

Gilbert hid a smirk – he might not be able to address Erzsébet like that, but he could enjoy it when someone else did. Erzsébet's cheeks flushed with anger and embarrassment, but she pulled a USB stick from the back pocket of her jeans.

'I analysed the stains on Lili and Kiku's pillowcases,' she said in a quieter, almost sullen tone.

'What did you find?' Gilbert asked, excited to have found a new lead.

Erzsébet gestured for Gilbert's laptop, and he logged in and handed it to her. She pulled up one of the images from the memory stick. Gilbert stared at it, and behind him, Roderich looked like he was about to be sick.

'The stains were from cerebral fluid – or brain fluid in layman's terms,' Erzsébet explained. 'About the amount you'd get from a spinal tap. And this is what I found in it.' She pointed at the screen.

'Some sort of parasites?' Gilbert questioned.

'Parasites,' Erzsébet confirmed. 'And plenty of them. Care to explain?' She asked, directing the question at Arthur.

'I don't know,' Arthur studied the screen and frowned. 'Whatever happens to the people we take happens after they're delivered to _Pater_.'

'You've been kidnapping people for centuries, and you _don't know_ what happens to them?' Erzsébet asked incredulously.

'Look,' Arthur snapped. 'It wasn't like I could just _ask_ my father what he was doing with the victims. I mean the last time I disobeyed him, I was _buried alive_.' He stared back into the screen. 'Parasites, huh? That would explain why their blood becomes undrinkable.'

'Brain parasites might explain the changes in behaviour,' Gilbert offered, then he faltered. The withering look Erzsébet gave him told him he was two steps behind her as usual.

'What did _you_ do then?' Erzsébet demanded of Arthur. 'Did you inject the victims with something? Make then inhale something?'

'I already told you that I _don't_ know,' Arthur said through gritted teeth. 'All this happens after _Pater_ takes them.'

'Surely you know something,' Erzsébet pushed. 'Didn't you become very close to one of your would-be-victims?'

Gilbert's eyes widened at her tone.

' _Erzsébet—_ ,' he began warningly, but it was already too late.

Arthur clenched his fists and stood, facing Erzsébet stormily.

'I didn't fucking give you permission to dissect my past like some sort of science experience. There are some things I'd rather not be forced to remember. You leave Elle out of this.'

With that, he bumped Erzsébet roughly aside and stalked from the room. Gilbert rose to call after him, before thinking better of it and sitting back down glumly. Erzsébet was trying to pretend she hadn't been shaken.

'Alright,' she said, taking a long breath. 'We can find out how the vampires re-kidnap their victims another time. I'll just—,'

'Wait,' a thought had just occurred to Gilbert. 'What if that's not the vampires.' Erzsébet stared at him, but he continued. 'I know you're the Bio major, but I remember learning about parasite life cycles in high school. There was a parasite that made snails climb up onto grass stalks after infecting them so that they would be eaten by birds. What if that's what's happening? What if the second disappearance is just the second stage of the parasite life cycle?'

'No!' Roderich uttered before Erzsébet had time to process what Gilbert had said. 'These just aren't things that are supposed to happen. Not vampires. Not brain eating parasites. Not giant mushrooms.' He looked to be on the verge of a breakdown. 'Why can't all of you just be _normal!_ '

Erzsébet looked startled at this outburst from her usually mild mannered boyfriend.

'Roderich dear,' she began in a consolatory tone. 'Surely you've noticed that normal just isn't a thing we can ask for around here.'

She reached for his arm, but Roderich flung her hand away, his voice rising into near hysterical tones.

'That doesn't mean you need to throw yourself right into the midst of it every time. That's simply unnecessary, Erzsébet. You're my girlfriend, maybe you should think of me instead of everyone else sometimes. I _worry_ about you. You know what? I just need some time on my own.'

Gilbert and Erzsébet both watched in shocked silence as Roderich slammed the door on his way out. Erzsébet turned to Gilbert, composure barely intact.

'Don't,' Gilbert said flatly. 'Don't say anything. You're fighting with your boyfriend, and I… I've been marked for death by a vampire cabal. Let's just both called it a night and we can figure this out in the morning.

To his surprise, Erzsébet nodded, wordlessly leaving the room. Gilbert thought he heard a muffled sob as soon as she was outside of the door. It had been a strenuous few days and the tempers of everyone around him had been worn thin and through. Without bothering to change into fresh clothes, Gilbert crawled into his blankets and curled up, wondering when Arthur would be back.

* * *

 **Laura is the name I use for Belgium, I haven't tagged her as a character because she just appears in this chapter then dies. The role she fills in the original webseries is Will's, only he didn't die until later, but there's no JP in this AU so that wasn't necessary. I am aware of the irony in that Laura is also the name of the character whose role in the webseries is filled by Gilbert here.**

 **Now that all the clues have been laid in place, I can finally tell you that the Dean is Rome. And that all of the vampires are former Roman colonies (the list of which, funnily enough, includes Romania). Yes, I know that parts of modern day Germany were once under Roman rule, but that didn't last very long and also didn't stretch as far north or east towards Prussia.**


	7. Chapter 7

**New chapter whoop whoop**

* * *

 _Gilbert looks more dishevelled than usual as he sits in front of his camera, his hair is a mess and it is obvious he had slept in the rumpled Silas University hoodie he is wearing. He catches his image on the laptop screen and immediately moves to smooth down his hair, without much avail. "I didn't sleep very well last night," Gilbert explains. "I didn't have any nightmares but I don't know, I guess I must have had a lot of things on my mind." He explains the events of the previous day - from his close encounter with Laura to the outbreak of giant fungi, the brain parasite breakthrough and Erzsébet's arguments with both Arthur and Roderich. "Roderich still isn't talking to her," he concluded. "And I think she's trying to find ways to keep her mind off of that by keeping busy. She was in here earlier – woke me up, actually. She told me to get dressed because we're going to the library subbasements as soon as she gets back from her Summer Society meeting. She thinks that if we go down the deepest levels where the earliest university records are kept, we might find something useful. So that's one way to spend a Sunday. I don't know if she's right, but it worth a try, I guess." Gilbert pauses as if he was considering whether to say something else. "Arthur hasn't been back," he finally says gloomily. "I don't know why, but I'm worried about him..." He trails off, staring pensively past the camera. "I guess it's because I don't know what vampires do when they get upset. I mean, for all I know, Arthur could have run out of the room to eat somebody." Gilbert blinks and his eyes focus back on the camera. "I_ hope _he hasn't gone and eaten somebody." He looks even more concerned than earlier, then quickly changes the topic. "Anyway, Erzsébet will be here any time now, I'll let you guys know how the library trip goes once we're back. We're going during daylight hours this time, so there hopefully shouldn't be a repeat of last time. Until we're back..." Gilbert waves at the camera, then clicks to end the recording._

* * *

Gilbert posted the video and tried not to think about Arthur, tried not to think about all of the things Erzsébet had said about him. There were more pressing matters at hand, Gilbert told himself, and as long as Arthur wasn't hurting anyone, where he was shouldn't matter. He started on a recommended reading, but struggled to get through it. Before long, the door opened, and although he knew it was most likely to be Erzsébet, Gilbert spun from his desk, hoping to see Arthur. It was Erzsébet. In some ways she looked just as worse for wear as Gilbert, dark circles ringed eyes bloodshot from tears, but her face was set in stubborn determination.

'You ready to go?' Erzsébet asked in a tired monotone.

'Yeah,' Gilbert replied, slinging his backpack onto one shoulder. 'How are things with Roderich?' He added after a moment's pause.

'He's been ignoring my texts, but I'm sure he'll come around,' Erzsébet smiled tightly, a strained, brittle smile that made Gilbert regret having asked. 'Enough chitchat, we're moving now.' She said abruptly, unable to maintain the smile.

They left the dorms and trudged across campus in silence. It was still before noon on a chilly Sunday and the grounds of Silas were like a ghost town. Through the gaps between the buildings, Gilbert could see the woods that lay beyond and his thoughts strayed once again to the question of Arthur's whereabouts. He knew his worry was irrational, it wasn't unusual for Arthur to disappear until late afternoon, but then again, he'd never been that angry on those previous occasions. It was pointless to worry – besides, Arthur had made it clear that his idea of "helping" was to watch and wait to see if they could come up with a plan. Gilbert going on this research trip would actually be the most productive way to deal with this situation. A question from Erzsébet dragged him into the present.

'You okay there?' Erzsébet asked him. She was frowning at him. They had arrived outside the library and she had one foot rested atop the first step.

'Yeah,' Gilbert replied noncommittally.

He walked on past her into the library. Erzsébet didn't say anything, but Gilbert didn't like the implications in the look she gave him. The library was mostly empty, save for the students studying frantically for whatever upcoming tests they'd were unprepared for and the PhD students scrambling to meet deadlines with their theses. Gilbert and Erzsébet walked through the library, past the continuous tapping of computer keyboards and rustling of notes being referred to, and reached the stairs that led to the first basement level. Gilbert paused on the stairwell and inhaled deeply, remembering how the stairs had vanished when they needed them on their last trip into the basements.

'Scared?' Erzsébet taunted, but Gilbert could tell she wasn't as fearless as she let on.

'Aren't you?' He asked quietly.

Erzsébet didn't reply.

Gilbert switched the light at the bottom of the stairs on this time. They made their way through the thankfully silent aisles all the way to the door on the side leading to the records from the 19th and 18th centuries. The second basement was even more claustrophobic and unnerving than the first. A musty smell of ageing paper filled the room, which was dimly lit by sickly florescent lighting. There was a subterranean chill to the stagnant air and Gilbert shivered despite the warmth of his hoodie. Erzsébet forged on towards the opposite end of the room.

'Where are you going?' Gilbert asked her. 'Shouldn't we look through this floor first?'

Erzsébet sighed impatiently at having to explain herself.

'Look, we only have the word of our vampire friend to go on here,' she began. 'And if he's to be believed, then the kidnappings have been happening even before most of the university was built. In fact, you could even deduce that some of Silas' buildings were built to cover up the disappearances – to use as a front, if you will. Therefore if we want to find out anything, we should look at the records documenting the very beginnings of the university.'

'You think there'll be something down here about the brain parasites?' Gilbert asked dubiously, bristling at her condescending tone.

'No I don't,' Erzsébet conceded before continuing in her previous tone. 'But while you might have gotten the part about the second stage of the lifecycle right, you're still missing something here.' Satisfied with Gilbert's confused expression, she elaborated. 'What purpose are the kidnapped students used for? You used the example of the infected snails that let themselves get eaten by birds – well, we're looking for the "bird" of this parasite lifecycle.'

Gilbert had to admit that made sense.

'So we're looking for something documenting – I don't know – some sort of eldritch abomination here?' he said.

Erzsébet snorted.

'I don't know what we're looking for,' she told him. 'But I'm determined to find it.'

The third and last subbasement was the smallest and most ominous of them all. Erzsébet lead the way through it, phone light switched on. Gilbert did the same. Despite the lighting being electric, it barely filled any of the room. Grotesque carvings sat in alcoves, casting ghastly shadows when struck by the torchlight and seeming to move when seen from a corner of the eye. A damp odour of decay hung in the frigid air, whose chill could not simply be explained away by the underground surroundings alone. Gilbert shivered again, feeling cold sweat drip down his back. Erzsébet seemed somehow unaffected, shining her phone light one way then another. They reached the end of the room and Erzsébet began to browse the final shelf. It was filled with just as many scrolls as crumbling, leather bound tomes.

'Where do I begin,' she muttered to herself, scanning the spines of the tomes for titles.

'Maybe over there,' Gilbert suggested, pointing his phone towards an alcove set into the wall beside the shelf.

Within the alcove stood a pedestal of black marble, displaying enormous, ancient, leather bound book in astoundingly good condition. In the light of his phone, Gilbert could make out the glint of gold embossing the cover, forming a title in a script he did not recognise. Erzsébet walked towards it, swiped a finger across the cover, and frowned at the lack of dust she found.

'That's odd,' she murmured, and then with a shrug, she reached to pick up the book.

'Wait –,' Gilbert began, but his warning came too late.

Erzsébet already had the book in her hands. For a moment nothing happened.

'It might be booby trapped,' Gilbert finished lamely.

He heard a derisive laugh from Erzsébet. Then the room began to rumble. The gargoyles in the alcoves were turning towards them and the heavy wooden bookshelves were shaking precariously.

'Run!' Erzsébet ordered, tucking the book that had triggered whatever was happening under her arm. 'Go before the stairs disappear!'

Gilbert didn't need to be told twice, he sprinted back the way they had come, taking care to avoid touching any bookshelves while Erzsébet took the rear. He was halfway up the stairs when they gave beneath his feet; transforming into a steep, slippery chute.

'This is some Indiana Jones shit,' Gilbert muttered after nearly losing his footing.

He regained his balance and crouch ran up the rest of the slope, turning around once he'd reached the top to help Erzsébet up. She was struggling, with one arm wrapped around the heavy ancient book and her other hand clutching at an apparent handhold in the wall, her hair was plastered to her face with sweat and her grip was slipping. Gilbert held out a hand to help her up, but Erzsébet was too far down.

'Just drop the book!' He called to her.

Erzsébet shook her head with manic determination.

'No,' she replied fervently, pulling the book closer to her chest. 'If something is trying to kill us over it, it has to be important. It has to be a clue.'

'It won't be a help to us if we can't get out of here!' Gilbert yelled down the chute with frustration.

'I'm not leaving without having gained something,' the look in Erzsébet's eyes was almost feverish. 'Catch!'

Without further warning she threw the book at Gilbert in a long, sweeping underarm. It was a strong throw with good aim and Gilbert barely needed to do anything aside from grasp at the book as it caught him squarely in the chest. As Gilbert made sure he had the ancient heavy tome secured, Erzsébet let herself slide to the bottom of the slope. Taking a deep breath, she took a few steps backwards then broke into a run, using the momentum to charge her way out of the lowest level of the library.

'What are you waiting for?' She snapped at Gilbert as she reached level ground. 'Move before the shelves collapse or the rest of the stairs do the same thing!'

They hadn't made it two paces before a familiar rustling sound reached their ears. Gilbert threw an alarmed glance at Erzsébet.

'Oh no, not again,' he said as a he began to slow down, beyond the rustling he thought he could hear the muffled noise of a fire alarm sounding off far above them.

' _Just keep moving_ ,' Erzsébet hissed, scanning the nearest shelves for something to use as a shield.

The vortex of paper flew out at them from beyond the next shelves, this time in small pointed slivers rather than entire sheets. The paper points seemed impossibly sharp and were directed straight at them.

'Umm, do you even have a plan?' Gilbert muttered.

'I said _keep moving_!' Erzsébet pulled a cartography book from the trembling shelf closest to her, and opened the thin, wide, thick-covered manuscript into a makeshift shield before running ahead of Gilbert. 'Don't let go of that book!'

They kept running, and despite how closely Gilbert tried to stay towards Erzsébet and the safety of the barrier she was holding, small pieces of razor sharp paper still manage to graze past his face and hands. He winced each they drew blood but made no complaint, for ahead of him, he could see that Erzsébet's hands were covered in fine criss-crosses of blood. The sound of the fire alarm grew louder as they reached the second flight of stairs – which, thankfully, had neither transformed nor disappeared. Erzsébet had once more taken the rear as the paper shards that had flown past them before had regrouped and were now in pursuit. A mechanical grinding of stone that could only have been made by the moving statues came from further behind the paper, and Gilbert shuddered before increasing his speed.

Then he noticed the shelves were not only shaking, but moving closer together.

'Erzsébet!' he called urgently.

'What?' Erzsébet's voice broke off into a hiss as yet another piece of paper sliced her hand.

'This room is getting smaller! Hurry!'

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Gilbert had to swerve to avoid running to a shelf. They could no longer move in a straight line, but were rather forced to zig-zag through the ever decreasing space between the shelves and the walls. Erzsébet dropped the cartography book, sprinting after Gilbert as the space in the basement became too small for the knife-like paper to effectively move. Squeezing past the last shelf just before it thudded into the wall, they ran up the final stairs and reached the entry level of the library gasping for breath.

The library was completely empty, having apparently been evacuated, the fire siren still blaring. Gilbert and Erzsébet glanced at each other, almost amazed that they'd survived, and slowly dragged themselves out of the library and into the open air. Outside, Gilbert was about to hand the book that had caused them so much trouble to Erzsébet when she pulled out her phone.

'It's text from Roderich!' she exclaimed to herself, her expression brightening as she unlocked the phone. 'He's watched the video you posted this morning and wants to know if we're alive.' She informed Gilbert before hurriedly typing a reply.

Moments later her phone buzzed and Erzsébet's expression flashed from hurt to fury.

'How _dare_ he,' she growled, angrily swiping a tear from the corner of her eye. '" _That's good to hear, there's no need to come bother me then"._ He leaves my texts on "read" for hours, then texts to ask if I'm alive, then decides to go right back to ignoring me. You know what, I going to go _bother_ him right now!'

Without so much a glance at Gilbert or the book she'd insisted they had to retrieve, Erzsébet turned on her heel and strode towards the dorms. Deciding that it would be best to give her space before he too returned to the dorms, Gilbert found a nearby tree and sat down beneath it to inspect the book with its cryptic script. Most of the letters were unrecognisable, yet Gilbert had the feeling he might have seen them before; perhaps in a museum. Lines in what appeared to be Latin were interspersed between pages. Flipping through from cover to cover, Gilbert could make no sense of anything. He shut the book and stood up.

'Fat lot of help this is,' he muttered, but tucked the book securely under his arm anyway before he walked backed to his room.

There was no sign that Arthur had been back in the dorm and Gilbert tried not to think about it. He settled into his chair, booted up his laptop and considered the book once more.

'Time to put Google translate to the test then,' he said wryly.

A few hours later he was at a dead end; he had no way to translate the bulk of the text - written in what he suspected was a form of Ancient Greek – and the Latin excerpts either made no sense without context or were not translating properly.

'I'm starting to see why every single language teacher ever told us to never use Google translate,' Gilbert commented to himself. 'What the hell is "tragic branch valley" even supposed to mean?'

Frustrated with his lack of progress, Gilbert closed off his laptop and took a long, relaxing shower before he went to bed.

Of course he had to go and have another nightmare. He was in a dark cavern and somewhere beyond there was a shining light, bright and awful, too bright to be the sun, but Gilbert felt drawn to it like a moth to flame. A voice called to him, a female voice, terrible like an arid summer wind, stripped of all flesh and soul, like a voice of the damned.

' _Do not go into the light_ ,' the voice insisted. ' _For the light is hungry_.'

'Who are you?' Gilbert asked. 'What do you mean " _the light is hungry_ "?' He had reached the centre of the cavern and looked up to see nothing but blinding light.

' _I am warning you, the light is hungry. Do not go nearer, or you will be next_.' The voice said, terrible as before, sending a shiver down Gilbert's spine.

Then blood began to seep from the walls of the cave and he could see her – the woman from his earliest nightmares; the woman in the white nightgown. Only now she was right before him, and he could see she had flaming red hair. Something jolted in Gilbert's memory then; he knew her somehow but he couldn't think where. The blood continued to rise, it reached his knees, then his waist, then his chest and neck. Gilbert kicked and struggled and tried to swim, to keep his head above the blood. The woman did nothing to try and save herself as the blood seeped into her gown, blooming across the white like a grotesque flower.

' _Do not go into the light, for the light is hungry_ ,' she repeated in a never ending chant, her vacant eyes staring beyond Gilbert, her expression never changing.

The blood reached her neck and she closed her eyes, letting the ocean of red flow over her, and then she was gone. But her voice continued – ringing in Gilbert's ears.

The blood now filled over half the cavern, pushing Gilbert towards the light he was not supposed to go into, blinding him. He had two choices; to drown or be consumed.

'No!' he cried desperately, futilely. 'No!'

'Hey, hey, Gilbert, Gilbert!" Someone was shaking him 'Wake up, you're fine, it's only a nightmare.' He held a voice say.

Gilbert opened his eyes, his reading light had been switched on and he could see Arthur looking down at him in concern.

'You're back,' Gilbert rasped, sitting up in his bed, his throat was dry and there was a foul taste in his mouth.

'Yes, I am,' Arthur agreed, letting go of Gilbert's arm.

'I had another nightmare… Does this mean I'm still marked by the vampires?' Gilbert asked.

'You shouldn't be,' Arthur replied. 'Not if you've been keeping that charm I gave you with you, it should've chased them away.'

'It didn't feel like it was the vampires,' Gilbert admitted. 'I was drowning in blood again, but this time there was this light that shone brighter than anything should… and… and there was a woman – a girl… in a white nightdress.' He frowned, trying to recall the details of the nightmare. 'She didn't even try to swim. I don't know why she didn't try to swim.' A though occurred to him; why something about her had seemed so familiar. 'It's her isn't it? It's Elle.'

Arthur said nothing for a while, standing to pace the room.

'I don't know,' he said. 'I've never seen her. The students we take talk about her sometimes – a girl with masses of red curls.' Arthur made a curling gesture beside his head, and sat down dejectedly on his own bed. 'For some reason she's never appeared to me; perhaps she blames me for her fate.'

'Or maybe she can only talk to people who aren't vampires,' Gilbert suggested gently.

'Maybe,' Arthur said, sounding unconvinced. 'But it doesn't matter – she's long dead.' He fiddled with his wristband for a moment, then stood again. 'Anyway, I heard someone set off the library fire alarms today.' He smiled knowingly as he walked back towards Gilbert.

'How do you know was me?' Gilbert asked, mock offended.

'Oh, just a hunch,' Arthur said in a nonchalant tone, tapping Gilbert on the nose. 'You've opened up one of the cuts on your face.' He murmured, reaching for a tissue from that bedside table and carefully wiped at Gilbert's cheek. 'There.' He sounded satisfied, but pulled his hand quickly away.

Gilbert felt a twinge of disappointed that Arthur might still be wary of him, but supposed he deserved it.

'You _have_ kept the charm with you,' noted Arthur with a dry smile.

Gilbert nodded, remembering he'd tucked the rabbit's foot into his pyjama pocket before he went to bed. He felt a small wave of comfort as he realised that must have been why Arthur moved away so quickly.

'So what did you find in the library?' Arthur inquired.

'We found this book,' Gilbert replied, sliding out of his bed to retrieve the leather bound tome from his desk. 'Too bad I can't read any of it.' He handed the book to Arthur.

'Ancient Greek,' Arthur mused. 'Ionic, to be exact.' He opened the book to a random page and skimmed over it. 'With some lines in Archaic Latin... How interesting, this is exactly the kind of thing _Pater_ would be working with.'

'You can read Ancient Greek?' Gilbert asked. 'That's pretty cool.'

'I was bored one summer and I decided I wanted to read the _Iliad_ ,' Arthur said casually, not taking his eyes off of the book. 'It just so happened to be written in almost the exact same form of Ancient Greek as thing.' He wandered back over to his bed and sat down, continuing to flip through the pages.

Gilbert took a seat beside him and peered over at the book.

'Anything helpful in there?' he asked hopefully.

'Well I'm going to need more to work off of than just "is hungry" and "eats people", because that basically just describes every single horror from beyond the dawn of time in here,'

Arthur continued to peruse the book, pausing every now and again to further scrutinise a paragraph.

'Surely, there's _got_ to be something.' Gilbert reasoned.

'Well if you _have_ to know,' Arthur flipped back through the pages he'd already read. 'Let's see… Chaos; primordial monster, feeds on the blood and souls of humans… Enceladus; one of the sons of Tartarus, must be sated by the blood of ten humans. The Ophiotaurus; will grant immortality, provided with human sacrifices, the more the better. Oh, how about this – the classic story of the Minotaur; feed with twelve Athenian youths until killed by Theseus. Though the Latin footnote for that entry says it might just be a misinterpretation of one of the other things in here.' He glanced over at Gilbert, who was feeling slightly queasy. 'Well?'

'I see your point,' Gilbert thought for a moment. 'Is there anything in there that talks about a light of any sort though?

'I'll keep a lookout for it,' Arthur assured and went back to reading.

'I'm really glad you're on our side now,' Gilbert confessed. 'We'd be completely stumped at this point without you.'

'Don't start expecting heroic vampire crap from me, Snowflake,' Arthur said warningly, setting down the book to glance sardonically at him. 'If I know better than to meddle with _Pater_ , I definitely know better than to mess with something old enough to think it's a god.'

'But you do mess with your dad!' Gilbert argued.

'Only in small ways,' Arthur interjected.

'Besides,' Gilbert continued. 'If you didn't want me to have heroic notions about you, you probably shouldn't have saved my life.' He smiled impishly.

'But then whose muesli bars would I steal?' Arthur said with a tone of dead seriousness before his expression of cool detachment broke into a similarly playful smile.

Gilbert snorted, and moments later Arthur began to laugh as well. Something about this just felt so _right;_ sitting next to Arthur in the dimly lit room and sharing a joke. With a jolt, Gilbert realised Erzsébet might have been right, but before he could ponder that thought any further, Roderich burst into the room.

'Where is she?' he demanded, as early morning light streamed in from the corridor. He looked more dishevelled than Gilbert had ever seen him and brandished a very crumpled card at them. 'Because I know we haven't been on good terms lately, but if she thinks this is a way to try and teach me a lesson, I'll let her know that this is incredibly bad taste.'

Roderich scanned the room as Gilbert and Arthur shared a baffled look, he opened the door to the bathroom and peered inside before closing it again.

'I know she's here somewhere,' Roderich insisted, but he sounded less than convinced.

'Who?' Gilbert asked. 'Erzsébet?'

'Well who else would I be asking about?' Roderich demanded.

'Erzsébet isn't here,' Gilbert informed him, still puzzled at why Roderich was so worked up.

Roderich faltered in his tirade, his expression becoming more panicked.

'No. She has to be here. This has to be a joke.' He maintained with adamantine desperation.

Gilbert shook his head.

'She's not here, I haven't seen her since she decided to go and try to talk to you yesterday afternoon…' Gilbert paused as Roderich blanched.

'She never came to talk to me,' Roderich spoke with horrified disbelief, shaking his head slowly. 'No. This is just some awful joke you're all in on, isn't it?'

'What are you talking about?' Gilbert asked with frustration. 'What joke?'

Roderich shoved the card he had been gripping into Gilbert's face. Gilbert leaned slightly away before taking it from Roderich's hands.

'I found this in her room,' Roderich explained. 'I went there earlier to return some things she'd left with me and her door was wide open and the room was a mess. This… this was on her bed.'

Gilbert smoothed out the card and read it aloud.

'" _Dear student_ ",' he began, and felt a dreadful sense of déjà vu. '" _Your nosy little friend no longer attends Silas University because:_

 _A) She meddled with things that were none of her business_

 _B) Did you really think we wouldn't find out what you were up to?_

 _C) We are ancient and terrible_

 _D) None of you are safe – we'll take anyone we want_ ".' If Gilbert had glanced up from the card at that moment, he would have seen Arthur look over at him in horror, but he kept reading. '" _Exit procedures have commenced, no action on your part is required._ ".'

Gilbert felt sick to the stomach, he carefully set the card aside and looked up at Roderich.

'I'm sorry…' he said trailing off, at a loss for words.

'They've taken her,' Roderich finished flatly, his voice breaking at the end.

'She's probably with all the other missing students,' Arthur offered, finally breaking his silence. 'I guess they did need a replacement.'

'What do you mean " _a replacement_ "?' Roderich's voice rose sharply, a flush of rage mottling his cheeks.

'Well I stopped them from taking Gilbert—,'

'And so they took Erzsébet instead,' Roderich sounded on the verge of hysterical tears. 'Why didn't you warn her? Why couldn't you have given her a charm as well—,'

'Whatever I do, they always just end up taking more,' Arthur interjected. 'I didn't think it would be one of your friends.' He added more to Gilbert than Roderich. 'I told you I'm not a hero.' He sighed as Gilbert looked disappointed.

'This is all your fault!' Roderich accused. 'The both of you!' He turned onto Gilbert. 'What were you thinking? Putting everything you do up online? For everyone to see?' He waited for his words to sink in then turned inwards, his voice dropping into a hoarse whisper. 'What if they're putting those things in her brain? What if the last thing she remembers about me was that we were fighting?'

A sob broke out from Roderich as he finished and he sank onto Gilbert's unoccupied bed, covered his face with his hands and broke down into uncontrollable crying.

* * *

 **I'm pretty sure that everyone's stopped reading by this point so I'm just going to say that I'm so glad a03 exists because if I was just posting this here, I would have given up writing a long time ago**


	8. Chapter 8

**Long time no update, but I'm back with a rollercoaster ride of a plot for this chapter.**

 **Thank you to the people who reviewed this fic; your reviews were very much appreciated** :)

* * *

 _A muffled sound of crying can be heard as the camera turns on. Gilbert looks back towards his bed where Roderich is just visible with concern then turns to face the camera grimly. Arthur is clearly in the frame, sitting on the side of his bed close to Gilbert's chair._

 _"Are you okay?"Arthur asks as Gilbert is about to start speaking._

 _Gilbert freezes momentarily and turns away._

 _"Roderich is right," he admits. "This_ is _my fault. They took Erzsébet because they couldn't take me, and they knew what we were doing because they could see my videos."_

 _"No," Arthur puts a hand on Gilbert's shoulder and spins the chair back around to face him. "Snowflake, you're ridiculously stubborn and impulsive, okay. And if you ask me – your whole wannabe journalist thing is doomed. But unless you're going around kidnapping people for some ancient unspeakable evil, nothing that's happening right now is your fault."_

 _"Really?" Gilbert looks like he doesn't want to believe it._

 _"Yeah," Arthur gestures at himself and smiles self-deprecatingly. "Former minion of the evil here." He reaches over and brushes a stray section of Gilbert's fringe back into place. "This isn't your fault."_

 _"I don't know," Gilbert turns slightly back towards the camera. "Roderich's right about us needing to be smarter. I should start warning everyone on campus who might be watching about this." He turns until he's completely facing the camera._

 _Beside him, Arthur shakes his head slightly._

 _"You go do that,"_

 _"Hello everyone," Gilbert begins. "If you are watching this from the Silas campus;_ you are in danger. _"_

 _"Tell them something they don't know," Arthur mutters. "Sorry." He says as Gilbert throws him an exasperated look. "But you might want to give them some more context."_

 _"I was just about to get onto that," Gilbert grumbles, elbowing Arthur lightly._

 _He goes on to describe the events of the past day, drawing some eyebrow raising from Arthur when describing what took place in the library. Throughout this, Roderich's sobbing becomes lighter and eventually stops._

 _"So we don't where Erzsébet is right now," Gilbert concludes. "But I'm going to try my damndest to find out. Because Erzsébet and I might not have seen eye to eye every time, but as I've already said; I'm not giving up on anyone."_

 _"Of course you aren't," Arthur can be heard saying as the camera is switched off._

Out of habit Gilbert hit the upload button instead of editing the video as he had intended to. He stared at the "video posted" screen for a few seconds, then sighed and looked around the room. Sunlight had begun to stream in past the curtains and Roderich had fallen asleep on his bed. Gilbert decided against waking him, looking for the time instead.

'I should go to class,' he said, stifling a yawn.

'You go do that,' Arthur agreed, he picked up the book and flipped it to a random page. 'I'll stay here, checking this book for anything I might have missed.'

'Haven't you read the entire thing already?' Gilbert asked as he walked into the bathroom with a change of clothes.

'Yes, but you probably would have asked me to read it again anyway,' Arthur replied as he shut the door.

Gilbert got changed, brushed his teeth quickly and splashed his face with water before returning to the room.

'Since when did you do things without being asked though?' he commented before searching for the books he needed.

'Just go to class,' Arthur spoke without looking up.

'I thought you didn't care attending classes,' Gilbert quipped as he found the last book he needed.

Arthur took his eyes off of the ancient tome to look at him seriously.

'I don't,' he said. 'But you do, and going would make you feel better, so go.'

' _Right_ ,' Gilbert muttered, slightly off put by the accuracy of the statement. He slung his backpack over his shoulders and left the room.

His classes were mostly uneventful and Gilbert managed to get by the entire day without becoming too distracted. He returned to the dorms to find Arthur still reading and Roderich still asleep.

'Has he been like that all day?' He asked Arthur.

'Pretty much,' Arthur confirmed, setting the book down and stretching. 'I thought he was going to wake up a few times, but he just rolled over and went right back to sleep.'

Gilbert tossed his bag onto the floor and walked over to his desk.

'I'll just leave him be then,' he said. 'Did you find anything?'

'No, nothing at all,' Arthur informed him. 'But I've only read it four times.' He let a hint of mockery creep into his voice and waited for Gilbert to notice. It didn't take long.

'I do _not_ sound like that,' Gilbert complained, tossing the closest thing he could find – which happened to be a yellow, bird-shaped stress toy – at Arthur. His throw was half-hearted at best and went wide.

'You really have to work on your aim,' Arthur teased.

'Oh, whatever,'

Gilbert sat down at his desk, booted up his laptop and logged into his student email, going through the unread messages. He could hear Arthur tossing the stress toy from hand to hand and expected it to be thrown back at him at any moment.

'Huh, the official end-of-semester party,' he murmured, clicking on the first message. 'I considered going to this when I started here. It must be nice to just be normal and look forward to parties…' The sound of the toy being thrown behind him stopped and Gilbert realised he'd been thinking aloud. 'That must sound so stupid to you.' He tried to laugh it off as he spun his chair to face Arthur. 'You must have been to thousands of parties.'

Arthur considered the statement and squeezed the bird-shaped toy before throwing it back at Gilbert.

'Yeah, but I happened to be the bait in a supernatural con game at most of them,' he said as Gilbert caught the toy.

'Still better than nothing,' Gilbert said with a shrug.

'They weren't much different from nowadays, you know,' Arthur confided. 'People drank a lot and danced the nights away.' His voice grew distant. 'Waltzing was fun – it caused quite the scandal back in the day.'

'Waltzing? Scandalous?' Gilbert questioned with disbelief. 'How is that even possible?'

'Well,' Arthur smiled roguishly, offering a hand to Gilbert. 'Why don't I show you?'

Gilbert laughed nervously, but took his hand. They both rose from where they'd been sitting. Arthur guided their hands out to the side.

'Partners were face to face,' he began, before placing his other hand upon Gilbert's waist and pulling him close. 'Chest to chest. All that whirling…' He spun Gilbert deftly and waited until they were facing each other again before continuing. 'Why, in 1698 it might as well have been sex.'

'Okay, I see now,' Gilbert said somewhat breathlessly as Arthur let go of his hand.

'You know, it is starting to get late and…' Arthur glanced over to where Roderich was still asleep on Gilbert's bed. 'As I was saying, I can basically sleep anywhere so you're welcome to take my bed.'

'That's nice of you,' Gilbert barely managed to get out before Arthur brushed past him, heading towards the bathroom.

'I'm going to freshen up now after sitting around reading that book all day,' he said impassively before the door clicked shut behind him.

Gilbert carefully picked up the book and set it down on the desk before seating himself on Arthur's bed, thinking over what had just happened and coming to a conclusion.

' _Worst. Crush. Ever_.' He groaned softly, slumping with his face in his hands.

He sat back upright as he remembered Arthur's supernatural hearing. There was no way the vampire hadn't heard exactly what he'd just said.

' _Oh crap_ ,' Gilbert whispered to himself, hoping he was out of hearing range this time, and held his hands back up against his burning cheeks.

Hearing the shower turn on Gilbert decided it would be safe to change into pyjamas. He had just gotten comfortable when Arthur exited the bathroom with damp hair and an expression that could only have been interpreted as smug. He didn't say anything but still Gilbert rolled over and buried his face into the pillow, feeling heat rise to his cheeks again.

Gilbert awoke the next morning to a feeling of being watched, causing him to wonder if he was still dreaming. He sat up and found Roderich looking at him from over on his bed.

'What time is it?' Gilbert asked, yawning.

The room was still dim and he wondered how long Roderich had been up.

'It's 6am,' Roderich said impassively. 'I can't believe how much of a mess this room was in, I just cleaned everything.'

'I can see that,' Gilbert muttered as he looked around, hoping he'd still be able to find everything.

'I've run out of things to clean,' Roderich continued. 'So it's high time we all had a talk.'

'Uh sure,' Gilbert didn't quite like the direction that this was heading. He remembered the complete breakdown Roderich had had the previous day and tried to change the subject. 'You know, I just had this strange dream that a lion was prowling around my feet.'

'Oh, that's probably because Arthur is down there,' Roderich stated, pointing at the floor between the two of them, where Gilbert now noticed Arthur was sleeping. 'I should probably wake him up.' Roderich tapped on the floorboards with his foot. 'Arthur, wake up!'

There was a noise of indignation before Arthur sat up.

'Seriously? I'd just fallen asleep.' He complained, surveying the space around him. 'Did you vacuum _around_ me?' He asked Roderich incredulously.

Roderich ignored him.

'Good, now you're both awake,' he said primly. 'We have a lot to talk about.'

'Does this feel like some sort of intervention to you?' Arthur quipped at Gilbert as he pulled himself off of the ground. 'Because it sure does to me.'

Gilbert couldn't help a smile.

'A little bit,' he agreed in a similar tone.

'The two of you can stop being so flippant about this!' Roderich said crossly. 'The fact is that Erzsébet is missing and we should do something about it right now. Firstly, Gilbert, you need to put some sort of delay on your videos so anything evil that's watching won't know what we're doing until we've already done it. Secondly, do either of you have a plan?'

Gilbert and Arthur looked at each other.

'Not really,' Gilbert admitted. 'But there's bound to be something in the book.' He noticed Arthur about to make a comment and quickly changed the topic. 'In the meantime, I think I saw some mould around the bathroom…'

Roderich stood and gathered up his cleaning supplies within seconds.

'I'll see to that,' he said and disappeared into the bathroom.

'Time for us to make a daring escape?' Arthur suggested once Roderich was out of their immediate vicinity, pulling himself up off of the floor and making his way over to the fridge.

Gilbert humoured him with a smile.

'I wish,' he said and sighed. 'But we really should be checking the book for anything that can help; Roderich is right about us needing a plan.'

'Don't you mean _I_ will be reading the book for the fifth time?' Arthur asked wryly. He continued before Gilbert could protest. 'As you wish.'

He returned from the fridge carrying a glass of blood, scooped up the book from where it rested on the desk and made himself comfortable in Gilbert's chair. Gilbert realised he was still sitting on Arthur's bed and scrambled to retrieved the fold out chair in the corner of his room that he'd been intending to return to the storage closet for the last few days. He set up the chair at the desk beside Arthur and peered over his shoulder at the pages. They both knew Gilbert couldn't decipher anything written in the ancient languages but Arthur made no comment about it.

As Arthur read and Gilbert watched, Roderich carried his cleaning supplies around the room, re-dusting each and every surface. Gilbert occasionally wandered from his seat for snacks, offering them to Arthur, who took them absentmindedly.

'I don't think this is actually leading us anywhere,' Arthur admitted after some time.

Before Gilbert could reply that they still had to try, the door swung open and Erzsébet marched in, glaring accusatorily at Gilbert.

'Where is that book?' she demanded, not noticing the way all occupants of the room were staring at her in shock.

Her eyes fell upon the book in Arthur's hands, and Erzsébet reached for it, knocking over the glass of blood on the desk in the process. Roderich had emerged from the bathroom to investigate the commotion and his eyes widened at the sight of Erzsébet. Dropping the cleaning rag he had been holding, he rushed to embrace her tightly before she could remove the book from Arthur's slackened grasp.

'Oh you're back! You're back! I'm so glad you're back! Thank God you're okay!'

Erzsébet looked surprised but leaned into the embrace, smiling at Roderich fondly and ruffling his hair.

'What do you mean I'm back? She asked. 'I haven't been anywhere…' Erzsébet trailed off as realisation dawned on her. 'Have I?'

Roderich and Gilbert's grim expressions and the look of surprised curiosity Arthur was giving her told her everything she needed to know.

'How long have I been gone?' Erzsébet asked, detangling herself from Roderich with a sigh.

'Just over a day,' Roderich told her gently.

'Do you remember anything that happened? Arthur asked once that information had sunk in.

Erzsébet thought for a moment.

'Nothing,' she said disconcertedly. 'One minute I was walking to Roderich's room and the next I was outside of this one.'

Roderich made a strangled noise but Erzsébet didn't seem to hear it over her own thoughts.

'So they took me,' she muttered. 'Which means they must have put those parasites in my brain.' Erzsébet turned to Arthur. 'How much time do I have?'

'I can't say,' Arthur replied. 'It's not like this book has been very helpful.' He gestured at the object in his lap and frowned as he noticed the blood from his spilled cup had ended up on its pages. 'Wait a minute…'

Gilbert followed his line of sight.

'Is that… new writing where the blood was spilled?' he questioned.

Arthur nodded and held up a hand to silence Gilbert as he began to read.

' _Lophiiformes_ … The Latin says _luce esurientem_ – the hungry light. Let's see the rest of the entry… _the light that devours_ … _an ancient evil that demands the sacrifice of six youths – three males and three females – every twenty years_ … _once victims are marked their world narrows to celebration_ …'

'Celebration…' pondered Gilbert. 'That's it! Everyone who was taken started becoming only interested in partying.'

' _Old as the ocean's depths, the light that betrays all,_ ' Arthur continued reading after pausing to give Gilbert a nod of affirmation. ' _It draws the devoured to it and consumes their mind, increasing the light and draws in more of the devoured_ …' A sudden look of horror came across his features and it took Gilbert a moment to realise why.

'It's absorbing their minds and using them to draw more people in,' he said with equal horror. 'So if Elle is reaching out to us…'

'They're still conscious in there,' Arthur finished for him flatly.

'God, that is just messed up,' Gilbert muttered.

'And it doesn't really tells us anything,' said Erzsébet. It doesn't even tell us why the Dean doing started this in the first place.'

'Oh that one's easy,' Arthur replied. 'Why does anyone start a cult; wealth, power, eternal youth, getting back at people you knew in high school, you name it.'

'Well that's really helpful,' Erzsébet huffed. 'Anything else?'

'You know maybe the book doesn't have the answers to everything,' Roderich interjected quickly, feeling an argument was about to break out. 'We're dealing with brain parasites here; maybe antibiotics might stop them.'

Erzsébet stared at him, muttered something about biology under her breath and pulled her phone from her pocket, frowning as she unlocked it. 'Huh, I have a voice recording on here…'

She pressed the play button and a tinny version of her voice filled the room.

" _Okay, I don't know how they managed to grab me but I'm currently stuck in a dark room and there's a few other people in here… shit they're coming back!"_

Erzsébet's voice broke off and two approaching male voices could be heard holding a conversation.

" _Just one more to go and we'll be all set for the ritual on the new moon,"_ A cheerful voice said with satisfaction.

'Antonio, always a careless one, of course he'd never think to check for a recording device,' Arthur spoke derisively. 'Uh, I meant: good job on pulling that stunt.' He said to Erzsébet after Gilbert nudged him in the ribs.

 _"Yes,"_ the other voice agreed _. "And after that I won't have to worry about you forgetting to feed or water anyone for another twenty years."_

'Andrei,' Arthur spoke with some surprise. 'I would have expected better of him… but I guess his slip of judgement there benefited us.'

 _"Hello there, nosy one,"_ Antonio said amicably. _"The Dean wants to see you now."_

Erzsébet made a sound of protest, but Andrei's voice broke in.

" _Sorry about this,"_ he said, not sounding very sorry at all. _"But we need to make sure you don't get up to any trouble. Think of this as payback for those scratches you gave me earlier."_

There was a thump and then the recording ended.

For a moment nobody spoke, then Arthur glanced cautiously at Erzsébet.

'The new moon; that's Friday,' he said to nobody in particular.

'Which means we have about three days to figure out exactly how to fight what we're facing,' responded Gilbert. He frowned. 'Funnily enough that's the same day as the end of semester party, do you think that that's got anything to do with it?'

'I don't know,' Arthur replied. 'But even with everything we know now, we still don't know enough. We don't know where the hostages are kept or how to deal with _Pater_ or the ancient, unspeakable evil he feeds students to.'

'Yeah, but there must be _something_ we can do,' Gilbert argued, getting up to pace in frustration. He paused as an idea came to him. 'What if we just stop them from taking anyone else before the ritual they were talking about?'

'That's possible, but likely to be difficult,' Arthur conceded before glancing once more at Erzsébet. 'How are you feeling right now?' He asked carefully.

'Quite calm actually,' Erzsébet's response sounded distant, and there was a vacant look in her eyes. 'Which is probably a bad sign.' She frowned and her eyes refocused briefly.

'Oh no,' Roderich sounded alarmed. He cupped both hands around Erzsébet's face and stared into her eyes. 'This isn't happening. This _can't_ be happening. Not this fast.' He shot an almost pleading glance at Arthur, who merely shrugged.

'It must be because the ritual is so close,' Erzsébet concluded as her eyes slid into focus again. 'It must be amping the effect of the wormy things in my brain.' She finished dreamily.

Erzsébet began to sway to some unheard music and Roderich watched her with concern.

'I'm going to take her back to her room,' he said worriedly. 'Come on now, dear.' He coaxed as he placed a hand in the crook of her arm and guided her slowly towards the door.

Gilbert looked at Arthur as they left.

'What do we do now?' he asked.

'What you keep doing when you hit a dead end,' Arthur's tense expression twisted into a grin. 'We're paying the library another visit.'

One trip to the library basements later and the pair were each carrying an armload of leather bound books back towards the dorms.

'For the sake of everyone's sanity, we should probably never mention having made this trip,' Gilbert said, rubbing at fresh scratches on his arms that he'd acquired from the library.

Arthur, though looking significantly less worse for wear, grunted his assent.

'Though,' Gilbert continued. 'You can't really expect me to believe the whole "I'm not a hero" angle you're trying to play after you saved my life about five times down there.'

'I thought we weren't mentioning this trip,' Arthur said inscrutably, but a smile played at the corners of his lips.

Gilbert laughed quietly and didn't push the matter any further.

Arriving back at their dorm room, they deposited the books on the desk. Gilbert was about to set himself in a chair and begin researching when Arthur placed a hand on his shoulder.

'Not now,' he said softly. 'It's late and you need to rest; go to sleep.' He pushed Gilbert towards his bed, cutting him off as he began to argue. 'Besides, it's not like you can actually read any of these books anyway.'

Gilbert had to agree he had a point there.

'Fine,' he grumbled as he fell tiredly into his sheets while stifling a yawn. 'Goodnight.'

'Goodnight,' Arthur replied as he switched the lights off.

* * *

When morning came, Gilbert woke to the sound of the door squeaking open.

'Morning,' he greeted, blearily rubbing the sleep from his eyes. 'Did you go somewhere?' He asked Arthur, who was wiping something red away from the corner of his mouth.

'I was out of blood,' Arthur replied by way of explanation. 'Relax, I went into the woods; plenty of wild animals out there.' He clarified when Gilbert's expression became alarmed. 'I didn't eat anyone.'

'Right,' Gilbert mumbled sheepishly, he pushed himself out of bed and wandered over to his desk to log in to his laptop, thinking it was about time he made another video update. 'Any progress on finding mystical weapons that might help us?' He asked, gesturing at disturbed piles of books. 'I know you probably did some reading while I was asleep.'

'Actually, yes – I did find something.' Arthur sounded almost pleased with himself as he picked up one of the books and riffled through it for the page in question. 'Here… The Sword of Mars – forged from metal fallen from the heavens with a hilt of drakon bone, virtually indestructible, meant to shatter all that oppose it.'

'That sounds perfect!' Gilbert couldn't contain his excitement at the prospect that an indestructible weapon that could hold the solution to all their problems existed. 'Where do we find it?'

'It's embedded in rock and sealed in a deep underwater cavern in the cliff face off of the coast of… I'm still working on that translation. Pretty sure it's just a place that's part of a different country these days.'

'Oh,' Gilbert deflated, his eyes caught a glint on top of a pile of books and he picked up the object. It was a heavy, squarish, black cross pendant edged with silver, which looked oddly like something that had belonged to grandfather. He fidgeted the chain the cross was attached to, trying to hide his disappointment. 'I guess there must be some other, more accessible weapons mentioned in some of these other books.'

'Gilbert,' Arthur looked up from where he'd been staring at the page in concentration.

'Or maybe we can just borrow a weapon from a nearby war museum,' Gilbert rattled on, ignoring the perceived attempt to console him.

'Gilbert,' Arthur said again. 'I'm a _vampire_. Not breathing and water pressure aren't exactly problems for me. All I have to do is figure out where exactly this sword is located. I can get it.' He smiled radiantly at Gilbert and Gilbert felt himself returning it.

'You _could_ ,' he breathed, before unbidden worries entered his mind. 'I mean, _could you_? It sounds risky and…and if your father found out—'

'I'm sure _Pater_ already knows the depth of my involvement,' Arthur interrupted. 'Besides, he fed the only person I ever cared about to a monster and I'm not about to let the same thing happen to you.'

They shared another smile, tender on one side and incredulous on the other. Gilbert dropped his gaze to the necklace in his hand and played with the chain once more and tried to force his thoughts into order. He was at a loss for words and decided to change the subject.

'Did you get me this cool cross necklace?' he asked, looping the object in question around his neck.

Arthur, having also looked away, now turned his gaze back in confusion.

'What cool cross necklace—?' his eyes widened in surprise and fear. 'Oh no, Gilbert, take that off!'

But it was already too late, Gilbert's body slackened and he slumped forwards as Arthur dropped the book he was holding to rush towards him and catch him in his arms. For a moment Gilbert was still, and then he drew himself back up to full height, his expression a cruel mask that had no place on his face.

' _Pater_ ,' Arthur hissed, his arms dropping to his sides as his hands curled into fists.

'Arthur, my errant son,' a cold, deep, ancient voice which made Arthur want to fall to his knees and hide echoed from Gilbert's mouth. 'I thought it was time we had a little talk.'

Arthur stood stiffly, frozen in shock and seething rage as the Dean cast a disparaging glance over Gilbert's body and laughed.

'It seems you've found yourself another human you want to keep,' the voice that was not Gilbert's mocked him.

'What do you want, _Pater_?' Arthur finally found his own voice and could not keep the snarl from it.

'You didn't come when I sent for you,' The Dean's voice seemed amused at his outburst. 'And you had to kill poor Laura for delivering the message.' He laughed again as Arthur stiffened. 'Did you really think I wouldn't find out, my dear son?'

'If you came to kill me, why didn't you just come yourself?' Arthur asked through gritted teeth.

'Kill you?' The Dean looked at him with patronising pity through Gilbert's eyes. 'After all the lengths I've taken to save you from your own foolishness?' He sighed dramatically. 'One day, my child, you _will_ understand.'

'Do you think I'll _ever_ understand,' Arthur tried and failed to keep his words steady. 'Why you fed the only person I ever loved to an abomination?' Tears of fear and anger threatened to choke him but he kept his gaze firmly fixed on the Dean.

'My son,' the Dean chided in a mockery of consolation. 'I thought you were more practical than this. I did it for your sake; the silly little creature could never have loved you. Why, the moment she found out what you were she ran to me and spilled all of your secrets like a tattling schoolgirl. She was a cockroach – a wretched crawling thing like this one.' He gestured at the body he was occupying and Arthur had to force back a cry.

'But you, my precious son,' the Dean continued, setting a hand on Arthur's shoulder in a farce of paternal warmth. 'You are a diamond; and stone cannot love flesh.'

'Enough with the excuses!' Arthur focused on all of his rage, ignoring the terror to brush the hand from his shoulder. 'You're just acting as the wait staff to some supernatural monstrosity!'

'And you want to be the one to change all that?' the Dean gave a low and unsettling chuckle. 'You want to claw the Sword of Mars from its underwater grave and strike out the light that we worship?' A malicious thin smile spread across Gilbert's lips. 'My son, that sword is meant to consume anyone who wields it. Why do you think the followers of Mars buried it in the first place?

'My dear boy,' the false paternal concern was back. 'You have no way to fight and nothing to fight with – sometimes that's just the way of the world and you ought to learn to bear that as best you can.'

'So,' Arthur laughed bitterly, finally unable to continue looking at his father in Gilbert's body. 'If it's all doomed, why are you bothering to come and tell me this?'

'Because I'd hate for you to become a threat to the Sacrifice,' the Dean answered with feigned geniality. 'So I'd like to offer you a deal. If you can keep…' He paused to sneer down at Gilbert's body. '…Your little _pet_ here from causing more trouble, I'll let you keep him, and take someone else instead? Do we have a deal?'

'How can I ever trust you?' Arthur ground out, torn between knowing what Gilbert would say to this situation and the flitter of hope that was rising in his heart.

'Father knows best,' the Dean told him. 'But you can trust that you can either let Antonio and Andrei take the last of your annoying little friends or I simply waltz this pretty little body right out of the door and into the Sacrifice. I mean, if he doesn't just follow his darling interfering girlfriend directly into the light anyway.

'So,' He added with a curt smile. 'Deal?'

'Deal,' Arthur agreed reluctantly, the idea of keeping Gilbert safe winning out over having to hide the truth from him.

'Good,' the Dean cruel, thin smile returned before his tone became one of warning. 'Remember, he's only safe if you keep him from meddling. If either of you get in my way again, I will show no mercy.'

'I think you've made yourself clear,' Arthur kept his eye on the ground.

'I should hope so.' His father informed him. 'And now,' he took a step towards Arthur and pulled the necklace back over Gilbert's head. 'You're going to have to catch this body again.'

Once more, Gilbert slumped and Arthur caught him, and this time he opened his eyes with confusion in Arthur's arms.

'What happened?' Gilbert asked through the splitting headache he felt as Arthur laid him out on his bed and hovered over him, concern showing in his eyes.

'The necklace…' Arthur hesitated, but Gilbert took no notice. 'It was a trap from _Pater_ … Poisoned. I got it off in time.'

Gilbert tried to sit up but the dizzying wave of the headache forced him back down.

'It's best not to move for a while,' Arthur suggested and Gilbert listened.

'Damn, your dad really plays dirty,' he said, his voice muffled by the pillows he'd sunk into. 'But he'll get his due when you show up all righteous with that sword.' He grinned up at Arthur and frowned when he said nothing. 'Arthur, are you alright?'

Arthur blinked distractedly.

'It's nothing,' he said. 'I'm just worried about you.'

'I'm fine,' Gilbert reassured, and sat up again, then fell back immediately into the pillows. 'Ouch, okay maybe not. Wow, it really feels like someone tried to force a whole other brain into my head.'

'Shh,' Arthur told him, brushing some hair out of his eyes. 'Just rest and I'll get back to trying to find out where that sword is.'

'Right,' Gilbert murmured, and he let the pain pull him into oblivion.

By Friday night, Gilbert was feeling a little stir crazy. Arthur still hadn't worked out a translation for the sword's location and they were all holed up in the dorm with Erzsébet bound at ankle and wrist mumbling the word "party" over and over on Gilbert's bed. Arthur was sitting on his own bed, glaring irritably at Roderich, who was peering skittishly over his shoulder at the various books Arthur had scattered around him.

'You really aren't helping this situation here,' Arthur finally snapped.

Gilbert frowned as Roderich apologised – there was something decidedly _off_ about the way Arthur had reacted.

'Any luck finding out where the sword is?' Gilbert asked from his position at the desk. 'Because knowing what's happening tonight really makes me wish we were armed and not just sitting here.'

'This is the safest place for you to be right now,' Arthur murmured, not looking up from the books. 'If we all stay here then they can't get to you.'

'And if we stay here, what to say the vampires won't just grab two other people,' Gilbert argued. 'There _is_ a party going on out there.' He motioned towards the window, outside of which the telltale signs of laughter and music could be heard.

'Party,' Erzsébet echoed feebly and Roderich hushed her, stroking at her long hair. 'I wanna go to the party.'

'If we can't find the sword or if it maybe doesn't exist…' Gilbert continued, wondering if this could be the reason Arthur had been so tight-lipped about the situation for the last few days. 'We could possibly find another way to stop the ritual. Maybe get help from the Summer Society, they're like a small army and I'm sure they won't like the idea of their leader being sacrificed to who knows what.' He took a quick glance at Erzsébet.

Arthur looked at him with frustration, then an idea appeared to have crossed his mind.

'I think I know where the sword is,' he announced to the room carefully and stood up. 'I can go look for it now, but it might take a while for me to get back. Nobody leave this room while I'm gone, understand? Just stay put.' He turned to face Gilbert directly. 'Promise me you'll listen.'

There was desperation in Arthur's voice and Gilbert hesitated, unable to shake the feeling that something was not quite right. He was saved from answering by a tremor rumbling from beneath the earth. The room shook and screaming from the party below pierced through the window. Arthur cursed beneath his breath.

'What the hell was that?' Gilbert asked as he dashed to peer out the window. 'Something's happening, we have to go help!'

'No,' Arthur said firmly, grabbing his arm. 'Stay here. I'll go see what's happening and come back before I go get the sword.' He let go of Gilbert's arm. 'None of you do anything, I'll be right back.'

He touched Gilbert's cheek lightly and smiled briefly, then without waiting for anyone to react to what he'd said, Arthur disappeared out of the door at supernatural speed.

When Arthur still hadn't returned twenty minutes later, a restless Gilbert turned to his laptop.

'I might as well record another video,' he spoke to himself. 'Given this is kind of our last stand and all. Besides, it'll keep me from worrying for the moment.' Gilbert looked over at Roderich and noticed his wary expression. 'I'm pretty sure all of the evil forces out there are too busy organising a dark ritual sacrifice to bother keeping tabs on us right now.'

Opening his webcam app, Gilbert noticed a large video file that he didn't remember filming.

'That's weird.' He muttered. 'The timestamp says Wednesday… Oh I remember now; I was going to film before I got distracted by Arthur mentioning the sword and the Dean poisoned me. Speaking of that… I did wonder what had happened.'

Out of morbid curiosity, Gilbert reached for his earphones and clicked on the file. By the time he finally stopped the video, Gilbert was shaking with anger and disbelief. He removed the earphones with trembling hands and answered the unspoken question in Roderich's curious expression.

'Arthur's betrayed us,' he spoke in a hoarse whisper.

Speaking that aloud combined with what he'd seen on his screen felt like a blow to the chest and Gilbert dug his nails into his palms as he felt his eyes begin to sting.

'Well,' Roderich began delicately, searching for words of comfort and falling short of them. 'You can't say that was entirely unexpected, given his history and all.'

'No,' Gilbert protested. 'He—,'

He stopped and shook his head, deciding it was pointless to defend Arthur, if even only to himself. Though Arthur's actions hadn't been taken out of malice, they'd nevertheless been selfish – and right now, Gilbert had friends to save.

* * *

 **Notes:**

 **Andrei is the name I use for Romania, I've tried to put some of the canon dislike he has for Hungary into this chapter. Neither he or Spain actually fill any specific role from the webseries and are basically the Dean's lackeys.**


End file.
